
Class ___IA1^ 



Book._^ 



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CopyriglitE^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 







Ephesus. 



SHAKESPEARE'S 



The Comedy of Errors 



EDITED, WITH NOTES 
BY 

WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Litt.D. 

FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK . : • CINCINNATI • : • CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



luEftAHYcf OGNGKESS 
I Two Copies Secsived 

JAN 4 1905 
Oopynsnt entry 

©OPY 8. 



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I ©OP1 



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-SJmkasfMflana 



Copyright, i88i and 1898, by 
HARPER & BROTHERS. 



Copyright, 1905, by 
WILLIAM J. ROLFE. 



THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 

w. p. I 



PREFATORY NOTE 

This play, which I first edited in 1881, has now 
been very thoroughly revised on the same general plan 
as the earlier volumes in the series. The Notes have 
been materially enlarged. 



CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Introduction to The Comedy of Errors ... 9 

The History of the Play 9 

The Source of the Plot 14 

General Comments on the Play 15 

The Comedy of Errors , . 25 

Act I . . 27 

Act II , . . . .38 

Act III 53 

Act IV 68 

ActV 89 

Notes 109 

Appendix 

Meres's Mention of the Play 181 

Plautus and Shakespeare 182 

The Period of the Action 187 

The Characters of the Twins 190 

The Duration of the Action •195 

List of Characters in the Play 195 

Index of Words and Phrases explained . . . 197 

7 



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-V T*" .g^'" 

Syracuse. 




Corinth 

INTRODUCTION TO THE COMEDY OF 
ERRORS 



The History of the Play 

The precise order of the early comedies cannot be 
definitely settled, but The Comedy of Errors prob- 
ably followed The Two Gentlemen of Verona, though 
some critics believe that it preceded that play. All 
agree that it was one of the earliest of the plays, though 
first printed in the folio of 1623. It is quite certainly 
the ^^ Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his Me7iech77iU5,^'' 
which, according to the Gesta Grayorum, was played at 
Gray's Inn, in December, 1594. The pun in iii. 2. 121 
on France " making war against her heir " would seem 
to show that the play was written between August, 1589, 
when the civil war about the succession of Henry IV. 

9 



lo The Comedy of Errors 

began, and July, 1593, when it ended. A writer in 
the North British Review (April, 1870) attempts to show 
that events in French history of earlier date are alluded 
to. Henry of Navarre, he says, became heir to the 
throne on the death of the Duke of Anjou in 1584, and 
remained so until he became king on the murder of 
Henry HI., August 2, 1589. 

The majority of editors date the play in 1591, though 
some place it as early as 1589 and others as late as 

1593- 

The performance of the play at Gray's Inn during 
the Christmas holidays of 1594 was notable in more 
ways than one. The students had made preparations 
for revels on a scale of exceptional magnificence. The 
sports were to include burlesque performances, masques, 
plays, and dances, as well as processions through Lon- 
don and on the Thames. A mock court was held at 
the Inn under the presidency of one Henry Helmes, a 
Norfolk gentleman, who was elected Prince of Purpoole, 
the ancient name of the manor, other students being 
elected to serve under him in the various offices apper- 
taining to royal government. The grand entertainment 
of all was arranged for the evening of Innocents' Day, 
December 28, on which occasion high scaffolds had 
been erected in the hall for the accommodation of the 
revellers and the principal guests. The students of 
the Inner Temple, as an embassy credited by their 
Emperor, arrived about nine o'clock " very gallantly 
appointed." The ambassador was "brought in very 



Introduction 1 1 

solemnly, with sound of trumpets, the King-at-Arms 
and Lords of Purpoole making to his company, which 
marched before him in order ; he was received very 
kindly by the Prince, and placed in a chair beside his 
Highness, to the end that he might be partaker of the 
sports intended." Complimentary addresses were then 
exchanged between the Prince and the ambassador, but, 
owing to defective arrangements for a limitation of the 
number of those entitled to admission on the stage, 
there followed a scene of confusion which ended in the 
students of the Temple retiring in dudgeon. " After 
their departure, the throngs and tumults did somewhat 
cease, although so much of them continued as was able 
to disorder and confound any good inventions whatso- 
ever; in regard whereof, as also for that the sports 
intended were especially for the gracing of the Templa- 
rians, it was thought good not to offer anything of ac- 
count saving dancing and revelling with gentlewomen ; 
and after such sports a Comedy of Errors . . . was 
played by the players, so that night was begun and con- 
tinued to the end in nothing but confusion and errors, 
whereupon it was ever afterwards called the Night of 
Errors." 

On the next evening there was a Commission of 
Oyer and Terminer at Gray's Inn to inquire into the 
disturbances of the previous night, the cause of the 
tumult being ascribed to the intervention of a sorcerer, 
who was accused of having " foisted a company of base 
and common fellows to make up our disorders with a 



12 The Comedy of Errors 

play of error and confusions." It is almost certain that 
this uncomplimentary description refers to the Lord 
Chamberlain's company, who were the owners of the 
play and performed it on this occasion. It was the cus- 
tom of the Inns of Court at that time to engage pro- 
fessional actors for their dramatic entertainments. It 
would appear that the students endeavoured to excul- 
pate themselves by throwing the blame of the disorder 
upon the players. 

Gray's Inn still stands in Gray's Inn Lane (leading 
from the north side of Holborn) in London. It derives 
its name from the family of Grey de Wilton, to whom 
it anciently belonged. The vast court, with the steep 
roofs and small-paned windows, encloses the elegant 
hall (built in 1560), in which, at all festive meetings, 
the only toast proposed is " the glorious, pious, and im- 
mortal memory of Queen Elizabeth," who always treated 
the members of the Inn with great distinction. 

Bacon, who became a bencher of Gray's Inn in 1586, 
wrote his Novum Organum there — but not The Comedy 
of Errors, we may safely say. His father. Sir Nicho- 
las Bacon, had been among the many eminent men 
v/ho were members of the institution ; like Sir William 
Gascoigne, the judge who condemned Prince Hal to 
prison for contempt of court. Bishop Gardiner, Bishop 
Hall, and Archbishop Laud. On the west side of the 
gardens " Lord Bacon's Mount " stood until recent 
years, corresponding to the " mount of some pretty 
height, leaving the wall of the enclosure breast high, to 



Introduction 13 

look abroad into the fields," which he recommends in 
his Essay " On Gardens." 

These gardens were a fashionable promenade in the 
time of Charles II. Pepys, writing in May, 1662, says : 
"When church was done, my wife and I walked to 
Gray's Inn, to observe the fashions of the ladies, be- 
cause of my wife's making some clothes." In 162 1 
Howell had written of them as "the pleasantest place 
about London, with the choicest society." At that time, 
and much later, the Inn was almost in the country, for 
we read in the Spectator (no. 269) : "I was no sooner 
come into Gray's Inn Walks but I heard my friend 
(Sir Roger de Coverley) upon the terrace, hemming 
twice or thrice to himself with great vigour, for he loves 
to clear his pipes in good air, to make use of his own 
phrase," etc. 

Gray's Inn is described by Dickens in The Uncom- 
mercial Traveller, and by Hawthorne in his English 
Note Books. The latter remarks : " Gray's Inn is a 
great quiet domain, quadrangle beyond quadrangle, 
close beside Holborn, and a large space of greensward 
enclosed within it. It is very strange to find so much of 
ancient quietude right in the monster city's very jaws, 
which yet the monster shall not eat up — right in its 
very belly, indeed, which yet, in all these ages, it shall 
not digest and convert into the same substance as the 
rest of its bustling streets. Nothing else in London is 
so like the effect of a spell as to pass under one of 
these archways and feel yourself transported from the 



14 The Comedy of Errors 

jumble, rush, tumult, uproar, as of an age of week-days 
condensed into the present hour, into what seems an 
eternal Sabbath." 

More than one writer has referred to the Middle 
Temple Hall (where Twelfth Night ^2.^ played in 1602) 
as the only building still remaining in London where 
one of Shakespeare's plays is known to have been per- 
formed in his lifetime ; but the hall of Gray's Inn is 
another, though the only other. 

The Comedy of Errors is the shortest of the plays, 
having only 1778 lines (" Globe " edition), while Ham- 
let, the longest, has 3930, Richard III. 3620, Troilus and 
Cressida 3496, etc. The next shortest is The Tempest 
with 2065, the next Macbeth with 2108, and the next 
A Midsummer-nighf s Dream with 2180. The average 
length of the entire series of plays is about 3000 lines. 

The Source of the Plot 

The general idea of the plot is taken from the 
Mencechmi of Plautus, but with material changes and 
additions. To the twin brothers of the Latin dramatist 
are added twin servants, and though this increases the 
improbability, yet, as Schlegel observes, "when once 
we have lent ourselves to the first, which certainly 
borders on the incredible, we should not probably be 
disposed to cavil about the second ; and if the spectator 
is to be entertained with mere perplexities, they cannot 
be too much varied." 



Introduction 



General Comments on the Play 

Coleridge, commenting on this play in his Literary 
Remains^ remarks : " The myriad-minded man, our, and 
all men's, Shakspeare, has in this piece presented us 
with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the 
philosophical principles and character of farce, as dis- 
tinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A 
proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by 
the license allowed, and even required, in the fable, in 
order to produce strange and laughable situations. 
The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is 
possible. A comedy would scarcely allow even the two 
Antipholuses ; because, although there have been in- 
stances of almost indistinguishable likeness in two per- 
sons, yet these are mere individual accidents, casus 
ludentis naturce, and the verum will not excuse the in- 
verisimile. But farce dares add the two Dromios, and 
is justified in so doing by the laws of its end and con- 
stitution. In a word, farces commence in a postulate 
which must be granted." 

But though the play is a farce rather than a comedy, 
so far as the plot is based upon the confusion of iden- 
tity in the adventures of the twin brothers and the twin 
slaves, it is not a mere farce — something, indeed, which 
NShakespeare seems to have been incapable of writing. 
With this farcical plot he has interwoven a pathetic 
story of domestic affection and misfortune, with which 
the play begins and with which it ends, when the sor- 



1 6 The Comedy of Errors 

row upon which the curtain rose is turned to gladness 
as it falls. There is nothing of this in the old Latin 
play, and only one or two of the commentators have 
alluded to the manner in which the young Shakespeare 
idealized and ennobled the story. Drake, in his Shake- 
speare and his Times (1817), hints at it thus ; " In a play 
of which the plot is so intricate, occupied in a great 
measure by mere personal mistakes and their whimsical 
results, no elaborate development of character can be 
expected ; yet is the portrait of ^geon touched with a 
discriminative hand^ and the pressure of age and mis- 
fortune is so painted as to throw a solemn, dignified, 
and impressive tone of colouring over this part of the 
fable, contrasting well with the lighter scenes which 
immediately follow — a mode of relief which is again 
resorted to at the close of the drama, where the re- 
union of ^geon and Emilia, and the recognition of 
their children, produce an interest in the denouement 
of a nature more affecting than the tone of the pre- 
ceding scenes had taught us to expect." 

Verplanck (whom I quote, as elsewhere, because his 
admirable criticisms are out of print, and seldom to be 
found in the libraries) remarks : — 

" There are about ten or twelve plots of comic acci- 
dent that have come down to our times from remote 
antiquity — some in the narrative form and others in 
the dramatic — which are so rich in unexpected or ludi- 
crous situations and circumstances, so fertile in new 
suggestions and combinations, that they have passed 



Introduction 17 

along from generation to generation, through various 
languages and widely differing forms of society, always 
preserving the power of interesting and amusing, and 
affording to one race of wits and authors after another 
a happy groundwork for their own gayety or invention. 
"Among these is the story of the MencBchmi of Plautus, 
founded on the whimsical mistakes and confusion aris- 
ing from the perfect resemblance of twin brothers. 
Plautus is to us the original author of this amusing 
plot ; but it is quite probable that the old Latin comic 
writer stands in the same relation to some Greek pre- 
decessor that the moderns do to him. There are some 
Greek fragments preserved of a lost play of Menander's, 
entitled Didymi, or The Twins, which, there is great 
probability, was the original comedy here adapted by 
Plautus, as it is known he did other Greek originals, to 
the Latin stage. The subject became a favourite one 
among the dramatists of the Continent at an early 
period of our modern literature. A paraphrastic ver- 
sion or adaptation of the Mencechmi was, it is supposed, 
the very earliest specimen of dramatic composition in 
the Italian language ; and, in various forms and addi- 
tions, more or less fanciful, the subject has kept pos- 
session of the Italian stage. There is also a Spanish 
version of it about the date of The Comedy of Errors. 
In France, Rotrou, the acknowledged father of the legi- 
timate French drama, introduced a free translation or 
imitation of Plautus 's original upon the French stage. 
Le Noble farcified it some years after into The Two 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 2 



1 8 The Comedy of Errors 

Harlequins ; and, finally, Regnard, in a free and spir- 
ited imitation, transferred the scene from Asia Minor to 
Paris, adapted to French manners and habits, clothed 
his dialogue in gay and polished verses worthy of the 
rival of Moli^re, and made the MencBchmi a part of the 
classic French comedy. 

" Such was the early and wide-spread popularity of this 
plot, before and soon after Shakespeare's time, which I 
mention rather as a curious fact of literary history, or 
perhaps of the philosophy of our lighter literature, than 
as directly connected with Shakespeare's choice of a 
subject ; for, indeed, there is no clear indication that he 
had recourse to any other original than the Latin of 
Plautus himself. Of this there was, indeed, a bald and 
somewhat paraphrastical translation by Warner, which 
it is possible (though there is little probability of it) 
that Shakespeare may have seen in manuscript. This 
was published in 1595, which is later than the probable 
date of The Co?nedy of Errors. There is also evidence 
of the existence of an old play called The Historie of 
Error, which was acted at court in 1576-77, and again 
in 1582, and is conjectured by the critics to have been 
founded on the same plot ; but this seems a mere gra- 
tuitous conjecture, for which no reason but the use of 
the word ' error ' in the title has been assigned. That 
title would rather designate a masque or allegorical 
pageant of Error than a comedy of laughable mistakes. 
There is no resemblance between Warner's translation 
and The Comedy of Errors, in any peculiarity of Ian- 



Introduction 19 

guage, of names, or any matter, however slight, which 
could not (like the main plot) have been drawn from 
the original by a very humble Latinist. The accurate 
Ritson has ascertained that there is not a single name, 
or thought, or phrase peculiar to Warner to be traced 
in Shakespeare's play. Steevens and others maintain 
the opinion (to which Collier also seems to incline) that 
the old court-drama of The Historie of Error was the 
basis of the present play, that much of the dialogue, 
incident, and character is retained, and that Shake- 
speare merely remodeled the whole, and added some 
of those scenes and portions which bear their own evi- 
dence that they could have come from his pen alone. 

"All these conjectural opinions, though made with 
great confidence by several critics, seem to me wholly 
unfounded. There is no external evidence whatever of 
the existence of any such play as is alleged to have 
been incorporated in this comedy, and the internal 
evidence seems to me equally clear against a double 
authorship by writers of different times and tastes. 
The whole piece is written in the same buoyant spirit, 
with no more pause to its gayety than was needed to 
add to the interest by graver narrative dialogue. Broad 
and farciful as much of it is, it has as much unity of pur- 
pose and spirit as Macbeth itself. The dramatist used 
the Latin comedy (whether in the original or a transla- 
tion is immaterial on this occasion), as he afterwards 
did Holinshed's history, using the incidents only as the 
materials of his own invention ; and this was done in 



20 The Comedy of Errors 

an unbroken strain of merry humour, as if the author 
enjoyed all the while his own frolic conceptions and 
the puzzle of his audience. Plautus had on his stage 
a pair of resembhng brothers, to form the central action 
of his plot. Such a resemblance, though rare, is not 
out of the ordinary probability of life. Resemblances 
sufficient to puzzle strangers and occasion ludicrous 
mistakes are by no means uncommon ; while the judicial 
annals of France (see Causes Celebres^ in the case of 
Martin Guerre, and of New York in that of Hoag (1804), 
exhibit a well-attested chain of perplexities arising from 
such similarity of person, etc., even surpassing those of 
the Menaechmi, or the Antipholuses and Dromios. Such 
a resemblance then, however rare, is within the legiti- 
mate range of classic comedy as a picture of ordinary 
social life ; and Regnard has treated the subject accord- 
ingly in a pure vein of chastised comic wit. But Shake- 
speare, writing for a less polished audience, and himself 
in the joyous mood of frolic youth, boldly overleaped 
these bounds, added to the twin gentlemen of his pages 
a pair of undistinguishable buffoon servants, and revelled 
in the unrestrained indulgence of broad drollery. . . . 

"The date of 1593, placing this among the author's 
earlier works, corresponds with various other indications 
of style and versification, and cast of thought, not de- 
cisive in themselves. Thus the alternate rhymes in 
which the courtship of the Syracusian Antipholus is 
clothed is in the taste of Shakespeare's earlier poems, and 
corresponds also with the versification of some of the 



Introduction 2i 

love-scenes in the first edition of Romeo and Juliet, as 
well as with passages in Love's Labour's Lost. The long 
doggerel lines, in which so much of the more farcical 
part is written, is a vestige of the older versification 
still used on the stage at the commencement of Shake- 
speare's dramatic career. This, in various forms of the 
longer rhythm, had come down through English litera- 
ture even from Saxon poetry, and had been employed 
for the gravest subjects, as not unworthy of epic, narra- 
tive, or devotional poetry. It had gradually given way, 
for such purposes, to more cultivated metres, such as 
are now in use, but was still used in dramatic composi- 
tion by Shakespeare's immediate predecessors for all 
purposes of dialogue, whether grave or gay. Shake- 
speare (so far as I can trace the subject) seems to have 
been the first who perceived the peculiar adaptation of 
these long hobbling measures for ludicrous effect, and 
who used them for nothing else." 

I add some extracts from Charles Cowden-Clarke's 
comments on the play : ^ — 

" The reading of the play is like threading the mazes 
of a dream, where people and things are the same and 
not the same in the same moment. The mistakes, 
crosses, and vexations in the plot so rapidly succeed 
that to keep the course of events distinct in the mind 

1 From the a;2/«Mj/5^fi? " Second Series" of the Shakespeare-Char- 
acters, kindly sent to me by Mrs. Mary Cowden-Clarke for publication 
in my former edition. Both series were originally written as popular 
lectures, which were widely delivered in England. 



22 The Comedy of Errors 

is almost as desperate an achievement as following all 
the ramifications of a genealogical tree. . . . 

" Hazlitt speaks of the 'formidable anachronism' com- 
mitted by Shakespeare in introducing Pinch, the school- 
master and conjurer, in Ephesus. It should appear, 
however, that our poet has offered a greater violence to 
consistency in establishing a convent and a lady abbess 
under the nose of the goddess Diana. Nevertheless, 
there is an admirably characteristic dialogue, and quite 
in his own manner, between the Abbess and Adriana, 
wife to Antipholus of Ephesus, in which the shrewd old 
lady makes the jealous woman confess that her own 
injudicious treatment of her husband's vagaries has 
driven him mad [v. i. 44-86]. . . . 

" Balthazar, the sober, sedate friend of Antipholus of 
Ephesus, is like a first sketch of the staid and serious 
Antonio in The Merchant of Venice. He commences 
with a similar air of sadness ; and the judicious remon- 
strance which the Ephesian merchant addresses to his 
young friend, bidding him have patience and forbear- 
ance with his wife's apparent caprice, is in the same 
tone of quiet resignation of character which distinguishes 
the Venetian merchant. 

" Pinch (whom we cannot afford to part with for the 
sake of avoiding the anachronism pointed out by Hazlitt 
— who, by the way, was himself too good a judge of 
excellence seriously to give up the character on that 
score) affords a pleasant instance of Shakespeare's gay 
exaggeration in humour ; the high spirits of an author 



Introduction 23 

taking shape in his writing, as it were. The descrip- 
tion of the fellow is capital : — 

* Along with them 
They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-fac'd villain, 
A mere anatomy, a mountebank, 
A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller, 
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch, 
A living dead man. This pernicious slave. 
Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer ; 
And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse, 
And with no face, as 't were, outfacing me. 
Cries out, I was possess'd.' 

That touch of the ' no face ' sets the man, with his 
attenuated vacant countenance and glowering eyes, 
palpably before us. 

" It forms an interesting examination to observe the 
way in which the two greatest comic dramatic geniuses 
that ever lived — Shakespeare and Moliere — have 
each treated a similar subject. Both writers have taken 
a comedy of Plautus ; a comedy curiously alike in main 
particular — that of perfect resemblance of person in 
the pairs of heroes. Shakespeare took the Roman's 
comedy where the likeness between the twin brothers 
Menaechmus forms the groundwork ; and Moliere took 
the play where the precise doubling of the parts of 
Amphitryon and Sosia by Jupiter and Mercury occasions 
the dramatic intrigue. The task of adapting the Latin 
author's humours to English apprehension of drollery, 
and the rendering them appreciable to French taste. 



24 The Comedy of Errors 

has been felicitously achieved in both instances ; and 
while the fine philosophic gravity of Shakespeare has 
thrown that intermixture of poetic feeling into the piece 
with which his large soul could not help investing every 
thing he touched, by the introduction of old ^geon's 
opening story and the Lady Abbess's admonition, 
Moliere's refined wit has retained his version through- 
out in the enchanted region of mirth and vivacity. In 
Shakespeare's play there is precisely that serious charm 
added which we find in Nature herself throughout her 
works ; while in the delightful mercurial Frenchman's 
play every scene floats in an atmosphere of brilliancy 
and buoyancy which suits the sportive theme he treats. 
No dramatic writer comes so near to Shakespeare's 
excellence as Moliere ; and even he only approaches 
him on one ground — comic humour. But in his wit — 
in the grace and wondrous naturalness of his wit — he 
vies with the Prince of Dramatists. 

" A main interest attaching to this play of The Comedy 
of Errors is in the evidence it presents that Shake- 
speare's earlier taste led him to classical ground for 
subjects. His choice of the Venus and Adonis and of 
the Lucrece for poems, and his selection of one of 
Plautus's dramas for the plot of this comedy — most 
probably one of Shakespeare's earliest plays — show his 
student tendency for Greek and Roman themes ; a ten- 
dency often evinced by youthful worshippers of the 



THE COMEDY OF ERRORS 



DRAMATIS PERSONM 

SoLiNUS, duke of Ephesus. 

iEoEON, a merchant of Syracuse. 

Antipholus of Ephesus, ) twin brothers, and sons of iEgeon and 

Antipholus of Syracuse, \ Emilia. 

Dromio of Ephesus, / twin brothers, and attendants on the two 

Dromio of Syracuse, f Antipholuses. 

Balthazar, a merchant. 

Angelo, a goldsmith. 

First Merchant, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse. 

Second Merchant, to whom Angelo is a debtor. 

Pinch, a schoolmaster. 

^Emilia, wife to ^Egeon. 

Adriana, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus. 

LuciANA, her sister. _ 

Luce, servant to Adriana. 

A Courtesan. 

Gaoler, Officers, and Other Attendants. 

Scene: Ephesus. 




The Shipwreck 



ACT I 

Scene I. A Hall in the Duke's Palace 

Enter Duke, tEgeon, Gaoler, Officers, and other 
Attendants 

yEgeon, Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall, 
And by the doom of death end woes and all. 

Duke. Merchant of Syracusa, plead no more. 
I am not partial to infringe our laws ; 
The enmity and discord which of late 
Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke 
To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen, 
Who wanting guilders to redeem their lives 
Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods, 
Excludes all pity from our threatening looks. 
For, since the mortal and intestine jars 

27 



28 The Comedy of Errors [Act 1 

'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us, 

It hath in solemn synods been decreed, 

Both by the Syracusians and ourselves. 

To admit no traffic to our adverse towns. 

Nay, more, if any born at Ephesus 

Be seen at Syracusian marts and fairs, — 

Again, if any Syracusian born 

Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies, 

His goods confiscate to the duke's dispose, 20 

Unless a thousand marks be levied, 

To quit the penalty and to ransom him. 

Thy substance, valued at the highest rate, 

Cannot amount unto a hundred marks ; 

Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die. 

u^geon. Yet this my comfort : when your words are 
done. 
My woes end Hkewise with the evening sun. 

Duke. Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause 
Why thou departedst from thy native home. 
And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus. 30 

yEgeon. A heavier task could not have been impos'd 
Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable ; 
Yet, that the world may witness that my end 
Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence, 
I '11 utter what my sorrow gives me leave. 
In Syracusa was I born, and wed 
Unto a woman, happy but for me. 
And by me too, had not our hap been bad. 
With her I liv'd in joy ; our wealth increas'd 



Scene ij The Comedy of Errors 29 

By prosperous voyages I often made 40 

To Epidamnum, till my factor's death 

And the great care of goods at random left 

Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse, 

From whom my absence was not six months old 

Before herself, almost at fainting under 

The pleasing punishment that women bear, ; 

Had made provision for her following me. 

And soon and safe arrived where I was. 

There had she not been long but she became 

A joyful mother of two goodly sons ; 50 

And, which was strange, the one so like the other 

As could not be distinguish 'd but by names. 

That very hour and in the selfsame inn 

A meaner woman was delivered 

Of such a burden, male twins, both alike. 

Those, for their parents were exceeding poor, 

I bought and brought up to attend my sons. 

My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys, 

Made daily motions for our home return. 

Unwilling I agreed ; alas ! too soon 60 

We came aboard. 

A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd 

Before the always-wind-obeying deep 

Gave any tragic instance of our harm ; 

But longer did we not retain much hope, 

For what obscured light the heavens did grant 

Did but convey unto our fearful minds 

A doubtful warrant of immediate death, 



JO The Comedy of Errors [Act i 

Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd, 

Yet the incessant weepings of my wife, 70 

Weeping before for what she saw must come, 

And piteous plainings of the pretty babes. 

That mourn 'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear, 

Forc'd me -to seek delays for them and me. 

And this it was, for other means was none : 

The sailors sought for safety by our boat. 

And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us. 

My wife, more careful for the latter-born, 

Had fasten'd him unto a small spare mast, 

Such as seafaring men provide for storms ; 80 

To him one of the other twins was bound, 

Whilst I had been like heedful of the other. 

The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I, 

Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd, 

Fasten'd ourselves at either end the mast. 

And floating straight, obedient to the stream. 

Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought. 

At length the sun, gazing upon the earth, 

Dispers'd those vapours that offended us, 

And, by the benefit of his wished light, 90 

The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered 

Two ships from far making amain to us. 

Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this ; 

But ere they came, — O, let me say no more ! 

Gather the sequel by that went before. 

Duke. Nay, forward, old man ; do not break off 30, 
For we may pity, though not pardon thee. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 31 

^geon. O, had the gods done so, I had not 
now 
Worthily term'd them merciless to us ! 
For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues, 100 
We were encounter'd by a mighty rock, 
Which being violently borne upon, 
Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst ; 
So that, in this unjust divorce of us. 
Fortune had left to both of us alike 
What to delight in, what to sorrow for. 
Her part, poor soul ! seeming as burdened 
With lesser weight but not with lesser woe, 
Was carried with more speed before the wind ; 
And in our sight they three were taken up no 

By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought. 
At length, another ship had seiz'd on us. 
And, knowing whom it was their hap to save. 
Gave healthful welcome to their shipwrack'd guests, 
And would have reft the fishers of their prey, 
Had not their bark been very slow of sail ; 
And therefore homeward did they bend their course. — 
Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss, 
That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd. 
To tell sad stories of my own mishaps. 120 

Duke. And, for the sake of them thou sorrowest 
for, 
Do me the favour to dilate at full 
What hath befallen of them and thee till now. 

u^geon. My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care, 



32 The Comedy of Errors [Act i 

At eighteen years became inquisitive 

After his brother, and importun'd me 

That his attendant — for his case was like, 

Reft of his brother, but retain 'd his name — 

Might bear him company in the quest of him 

Whom whilst I labour'd of a love to see, 130 

I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd. 

Five summers have I spent in furthest Greece, 

Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia, 

And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus ; 

Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought 

Or that or any place that harbours men. 

But here must end the story of my life ; 

And happy were I in my timely death. 

Could all my travels warrant me they live. 

Ditke. Hapless ^Egeon, whom the fates have mark'd 
To bear the extremity of dire mishap ! 141 

Now, trust me, were it not against our laws, 
Against my crown, my oath, my dignity, 
Which princes, would they, may not disannul, 
My soul should sue as advocate for thee. 
But, though thou art adjudged to the death, 
And passed sentence may not be recall'd 
But to our honour's great disparagement, 
Yet I will favour thee in what I can. 
Therefore, merchant, I '11 limit thee this day 150 

To seek thy help by beneficial help. 
Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus. 
Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum, 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 23 

And live ; if no, then thou art doom'd to die. — 
Gaoler, take him to thy custody. 

Gaoler. I will, my lord. 

yEgeon. Hopeless and helpless doth ^geon wend 
But to procrastinate his lifeless end. [Exeunt. 



Scene II. The Mart 

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse, Dromio of Syra- 
cuse, and First Merchant 

I Merchant. Therefore give out you are of Epi- 
damnum, 
Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate. 
This very day a Syracusian merchant 
Is apprehended for arrival here. 
And not being able to buy out his life 
According to the statute of the town 
Dies ere the weary sun set in the west. 
There is your money that I had to keep. 

Antipholus of S. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we 
host, 
And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee. lo 

Within this hour it will be dinner-time ; 
Till that, I '11 view the manners of the town, 
Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings, 
And then return and sleep within mine inn, 
For with long travel I am stiff and weary. 
Get thee away. 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 3 



34 The Comedy of Errors [Act i 

Dro7Jiio of S. Many a man would take you at your 
word, 
And go indeed, having so good a mean. \Exit. 

Antipholus of S. A trusty villain, sir, that very oft, 
When I am dull with care and melancholy, 20 

Lightens my humour with his merry jests. 
What, will you walk with me about the town, 
And then go to my inn and dine with me ? 

I Merchant. I am invited, sir, to certain mer- 
chants. 
Of whom I hope to make much benefit ; 
I crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock. 
Please you, I '11 meet with you upon the mart, 
And afterward consort you till bedtime ; 
My present business calls me from you now. 

Ajitipholus of S. Farewell till then ; I will go lose 
myself 30 

And wander up and down to view the city. 

I Merchant. Sir, I commend you to your own 
content. \Exit. 

Antipholus of S. He that commends me to mine own 
content 
Commends me to the thing I cannot get 
I to the world am like a drop of water 
That in the ocean seeks another drop, 
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, 
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself ; 
So I, to find a mother and a brother, 
In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself. 4° 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 35 



Enter Dromio of Ephesus 

Here comes the almanac of my true date. — 
What now ? how chance thou art return 'd so soon ? 

Dromio of E. Return 'd so soon ! rather approach 'd 
too late. 
The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit, 
The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell ; 
My mistress made it one upon my cheek. 
She is so hot because the meat is cold ; 
The meat is cold because you come not home ; 
You come not home because you have no stomach ; 
You have no stomach having broke your fast ; 50 

But we that know what 't is to fast and pray 
Are penitent for your default to-day. 

Antipholus of S. Stop in your wind, sir. Tell me 
this, I pray : 
Where have you left the money that I gave you ? 

Dromio of E. O ! — sixpence, that I had o' Wednes- 
day last 
To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper ? 
The saddler had it, sir ; I kept it not. 

Antipholus of S. I am not in a sportive humour now ; 
Tell me, and dally not, where is the money ? 
We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust 60 

So great a charge from thine own custody ? 

Dromio of E. 1 pray you, jest, sir, as you sit at 
dinner. 
I from my mistress come to you in post ; 



^6 The Comedy of Errors [Act I 

If I return, I shall be post indeed, 
For she will score your fault upon my pate. 
Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock, 
And strike you home without a messenger. 

Antipholus of S. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are 
out of season ; 
Reserve them till a merrier hour than this. 
Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee ? 70 

Dromio of E. To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to 

me. 
Antipholus of S. Come on, sir knave, have done your 
foolishness, 
And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge. 

Dromio of E. My charge was but to fetch you from 
the mart 
Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner ; 
My mistress and her sister stays for you. 

Antipholus of S. Now, as I am a Christian, answer 
me 
In what safe place you have bestow'd my money, 
Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours 
That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd. 80 

Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me ? 

Dromio of E. I have some marks of yours upon my 
pate. 
Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders, 
But not a thousand marks between you both. 
If I should pay your worship those again, 
Perchance you will not bear them patiently. 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 37 

Antipholus of S. Thy mistress' marks ? what mistress, 
slave, hast thou ? 

Dromio of E. Your worship's wife, my mistress at 
the Phoenix; 
She that doth fast till you come home to dinner. 
And prays that you will hie you home to dinner. 90 

Antipholus of S. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto 
my face. 
Being forbid ? There, take you that, sir knave. 

Dromio of E. What mean you, sir? for God's sake, 
hold your hands ! 

Nay, an you will not, sir, I '11 take my heels. \_Exit. 

Antipholus of S. Upon life, by some device or other 
The villain is o'er-raught of all my money. 
They say this town is full of cozenage, 
As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye. 
Dark- working sorcerers that change the mind, 
Soul-killing witches that deform the body, 100 

Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, 
And many such-like liberties of sin ; 
If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner. 
I '11 to the Centaur, to go seek this slave ; 
I greatly fear my money is not safe. [Exit. 




■-^-^-cf^?-^ 






Remains of Gate at Ephesus 



ACT II 

Scene I. The House of Antipholus of Ephesus 
Enter Adriana und Luciana 

Adriana. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd, 
That in such haste I sent to seek his master ! 
Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock. 

Luciana. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him, 
And from the mart he 's somewhere gone to dinner. 
Good sister, let us dine and never fret. 
A man is master of his liberty ; 
Time is their master, and when they see time 
They '11 go or come. If so, be patient, sister. 

38 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 39 

Adriana. Why should their Hberty than ours be 

more ? 10 

Luciana. Because their business still lies out o' 

door. 
Adriana. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill. 
Luciana. O, know he is the bridle of your will. 
Adriana. There 's none but asses will be bridled so. 
Luciana. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe. 
There 's nothing situate under heaven's eye 
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky. 
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls 
Are their males' subjects and at their controls ; 
Men, more divine, the masters of all these, 20 

Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas. 
Indued with intellectual sense and souls, 
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls, 
Are masters to their females, and their lords. 
Then let your will attend on their accords. 

Adriana. This servitude makes you to keep unwed. 
Luciana. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed. 
Adriana. But, were you wedded, you would bear 

some sway. 
Luciana. Ere I learn love, I '11 practise to obey. 
Adriana. How if your husband start some other 

where ? 
Luciana. Till he come home again, I would for- 
bear. 31 
Adriana. Patience unmov'd ! no marvel though she 
pause ; 



40 The Comedy of Errors [Act ii 

They can be meek that have no other cause. 

A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity, 

We bid be quiet when we hear it cry ; 

But were we burden 'd with hke weight of pain, 

As much or more we should ourselves complain. 

So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee, 

With urging helpless patience wouldst reUeve me ; 

But, if thou live to see hke right bereft, 40 

This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left. 

Luciana, Well, I will marry one day but to try. 
Here comes your man ; now is your husband nigh. 

Enter Dromio of Ephesus 

Adriana. Say, is your tardy master now at hand ? 

Dromio of E. Nay, he 's at two hands with me, 
and that my two ears can witness. 

Adriana. Say, didst thou speak with him ? know'st 
thou his mind ? 

Dromio of E. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear. 
Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it. 

Luciana. Spake he so doubtfully thou couldst not 
feel his meaning ? 5^ 

Dromio of E. Nay, he struck so plainly, I could 
too well feel his blows ; and withal so doubtfully that 
I could scarce understand them. 

Adriana. But say, I prithee, is he coming home ? 
It seems he hath great care to please his wife. 

Dromio of E. Why, mistress, sure my master is 
horn-mad. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 41 

Adriana. Horn-mad, thou villain ! 

Dromio of E. I mean not cuckold-mad ; 

But, sure, he is stark mad. 

When I desir'd him to come home to dinner, 60 

He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold. 
' 'T is dinner-time,' quoth I ; ' My gold ! ' quoth he. 
' Your meat doth burn,' quoth I ; ' My gold ! ' quoth he. 
' Will you come home ? ' quoth I ; ' My gold ! ' quoth he, 
' Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain ? ' 
' The pig,' quoth I, ' is burn'd ; ' ' My gold ! ' quoth he. 
' My mistress, sir,' quoth I; ' Hang up thy mistress ! 
I know not thy mistress ; out on thy mistress ! ' 

Luciana. Quoth who ? 

Dromio of E, Quoth my master. 70 

' I know,' quoth he, ' no house, no wife, no mistress.' 
So that my errand, due unto my tongue, 
I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders ; 
For, in conclusion, he did beat me there. 

Adriana. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him 
home. 

Dromio of E. Go back again, and be new beaten 
home? 
For God's sake, send some other messenger. 

Adriana. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across. 

Dromio of E. And he will bless that cross with other 
beating. 
Between you I shall have a holy head. 80 

Adriana. Hence, prating peasant ! fetch thy master 
home. 



42 The Comedy of Errors [Act li 

Dromio of E. Am I so round with you as you with me, 

That Uke a football you do spurn me thus ? 

You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither ; 

If I last in this service, you must case me in leather. 

{Exit 
Luciana. Fie, how impatience lowereth in your face 1 
Adriana. His company must do his minions grace, 

Whilst I at home starve for a merry look. 

Hath homely age the alluring beauty took 

From my poor cheek ? then he hath wasted it. 90 

Are my discourses dull ? barren my wit ? 

If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd, 

Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard. 

Do their gay vestments his affections bait ? 

That 's not my fault ; he 's master of my state. 

What ruins are in me that can be found, 

By him not ruin'd ? then is he the ground 

Of my defeatures. My decayed fair 

A sunny look of his would soon repair, 

But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale 100 

And feeds from home ; poor I am but his stale. 

Luciana. Self-harming jealousy ! fie, beat it hence 1 
Adriana. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dis- 
pense. 

I know his eye doth homage other where, 

Or else what lets it but he would be here ? 

Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain ; 

Would that alone, alone he would detain, 

So he would keep fair quarter with his bed I 



Scene iij The Comedy of Errors 43 

I see the jewel best enamelled 

Will lose his beauty, and though gold bides still no 

That others touch, yet often touching will 

Wear gold ; and so a man that hath a name 

By falsehood and corruption doth it shame. 

Since that my beauty cannot please his eye, 

I '11 weep what 's left away, and weeping die. 

Luciana. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy ! 

\_Exeunt. 

Scene II. A Public Place 

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse 

Antipholus of S. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up 
Safe at the Centaur ; and the heedful slave 
Is wander'd forth, in care to seek me out. 
By computation and mine host's report, 
I could not speak with Dromio since at first 
I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes. — 

Enler Dromio of Syracuse 

How now, sir ! is your merry humour alter'd ? 

As you love strokes, so jest with me again. 

You know no Centaur ? you receiv'd no gold ? 

Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner ? 10 

My house was at the Phoenix ? Wast thou mad 

That thus so madly thou didst answer me ? 

Dromio of S. What answer, sir ? when spake I such 
a word ? 



44 The Comedy of Errors [Act ii 

Antipholus of S. Even now, even here, not half an 

hour since. 
Drofnio of S. I did not see you since you sent me 
hence, 
Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me. 
Antipholus of S. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's 
receipt, 
And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner, 
For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd. 

Dromio of S. I am glad to see you in this merry 
vein ; 20 

What means this jest ? I pray you, master, tell me. 
Antipholus of S, Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in 
the teeth ? 
Think'st thou I jest ? Hold, take thou that, and that. 

[Beating him. 
Dromio of S. Hold, sir, for God's sake! now your 
jest is earnest. 
Upon what bargain do you give it me ? 

Antipholus of S. Because that I familiarly some- 
times 
Do use you for my fool and chat with you, 
Your sauciness will jest upon my love 
And make a common of my serious hours. 
When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport, 30 
But creep in crannies when he hides his beams. 
If you will jest with me, know my aspect 
And fashion your demeanour to my looks, 
Or I will beat this method in your sconce. 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 45 

Dromio of S. Sconce call you it ? so you would 
leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you 
use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my 
head and insconce it too ; or else I shall seek my 
wit in my shoulders. But, I pray, sir, why am I 
beaten ? 40 

Afitipholus of S. Dost thou not know ? 

Dromio of S. Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten. 

Antipholus of S. Shall I tell you why ? 

Dromio of S. Ay, sir, and wherefore ; for they say 
every why hath a wherefore. 

Antipholus of S. Why, first, — for flouting me; and 
then, wherefore, — 
For urging it the second time to me. 

Dromio of S. Was there ever any man thus beaten 
out of season, 
When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme 

nor reason ? 
Well, sir, I thank you. 50 

Antipholus of S. Thank me, sir ! for what ? 

Dromio of S. Marry, sir, for this something that 
you gave me for nothing. 

Antipholus of S. I '11 make you amends next, to 
give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it 
dinner-time ? 

Dromio of S. No, sir ; I think the meat wants that 
I have. 

Antipholus of S. In good time, sir ; what 's that ? 

Dromio of S. Basting. 60 



46 The Comedy of Errors [Act 11 

Antipholus of S. Well, sir, then 't will be dry. 

Dromio of S. If it be, sir, I pray you, eat none 
of it. 

Antipholus of S. Your reason ? 

Dromio of S. Lest it make you choleric, and pur- 
chase me another dry basting. 

Antipholus of S. Well, sir, learn to jest in good 
time ; there 's a time for all things. 

Drotnio of S. I durst have denied that, before you 
were so choleric. 70 

Antipholus of S. By what rule, sir ? 

Dromio of S. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the 
plain bald pate of father Time himself. 

Antipholus of S. Let 's hear it. 

Dromio of S. There 's no time for a man to recover 
his hair that grows bald by nature. 

Antipholus of S. May he not do it by fine and 
recovery ? 

Dromio of S. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and 
recover the lost hair of another man. 80 

Afitipholus of S. Why is Time such a niggard of 
hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement ? 

Dromio of S. Because it is a blessing that he be- 
stows on beasts ; and what he hath scanted men in 
hair he hath given them in wit. 

Antipholus of S. Why, but there 's many a man 
hath more hair than wit. 

Dromio of S. Not a man of those but he hath the 
wit to lose his hair. 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 47 

Antipholus of S. Why, thou didst conclude hairy 
men plain dealers without wit. 91 

Dromio of S. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost ; 
yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity. 

Antipholus of S. For what reason ? 

Dromio of S. For two ; and sound ones too. 

Antipholus of S. Nay, not sound, I pray you. 

Dromio of S. Sure ones then. 

Antipholus of S. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing. 

Dromio of S. Certain ones then. 

Antipholus of S. Name them. 100 

Dromio of S. The one, to save the money that he 
spends in trimming ; the other, that at dinner they 
should not drop in his porridge. 

Antipholus of S. You would all this time have 
proved there is no time for all things. 

Dromio of S. Marry, and did, sir ; namely, no 
time to recover hair lost by nature. 

Antipholus of S. But your reason was not substan- 
tial why there is no time to recover. 

Dromio of S. Thus I mend it : Time himself is 
bald, and therefore to the world's end will have bald 
followers. 112 

Antipholus of S. 1 knew 'twould be a bald conclu- 
sion. — But, soft I Who wafts us yonder ? 

Enter Adriana and Luciana 

Adriana. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown. 
Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects ; 



48 The Comedy of Errors [Act 11 

I am not Adriana nor thy wife. 

The time was once when thou unurg'd wouldst vow 

That never words were music to thine ear, 

That never object pleasing in thine eye, 120 

That never touch well welcome to thy hand, 

That never meat sweet savour 'd in thy taste, 

Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd to thee. 

How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it, 

That thou art thus estranged from thyself ? 

Thyself I call it, being strange to me, 

That, undividable, incorporate. 

Am better than thy dear self's better part. 

Ah, do not tear away thyself from me ! 

For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall 130 

A drop of water in the breaking gulf. 

And take unmingled thence that drop again, 

Without addition or diminishing, 

As take from me thyself and not me too. 

How dearly would it touch thee to the quick, 

Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious, 

And that this body, consecrate to thee. 

By ruffian lust should be contaminate ! 

Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me, 

And hurl the name of husband in my face, 140 

And tear the stain 'd skin off my harlot-brow. 

And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring. 

And break it with a deep-divorcing vow ? 

I know thou canst ; and therefore see thou do it. 

I am possess 'd with an adulterate blot, 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 49 

My blood is mingled with the crime of lust ; 

For if we two be one and thou play false, 

I do digest the poison of thy flesh, 

Being strumpeted by thy contagion. 

Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed, 150 

I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured. 

Antipholus of S. Plead you to me, fair dame? I 
know you not. 
In Ephesus I am but two hours old. 
As strange unto your town as to your talk. 
Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd, 
Want wit in all one word to understand. 

Luciana. Fie, brother I how the world is chang'd 
with you! 
When were you wont to use my sister thus ? 
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner. 

Antipholus of S. By Dromio ? 160 

Dromio of S. By me ? 

Adriana. By thee ; and this thou didst return from 
him, — 
That he did buffet thee, and in his blows 
Denied my house for his, me for his wife. 

Antipholus of S. Did you converse, sir, with this 
gentlewoman ? 
What is the course and drift of your compact ? 

Dromio of S. I, sir ? I never saw her till this time. 

Antipholus of S, Villain, thou liest; for even her very 
words 
Didst thou deliver to me on the mart. 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 4 



50 The Comedy of Errors [Act il 

Droniio of S. I never spake with her in all my life. 

Antipholus of S. How can she thus then call us by 
our names, 171 

Unless it be by inspiration ? 

Adn'ana. How ill agrees it with your gravity 
To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave, 
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood ! 
Be it my wrong you are from me exempt. 
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt. 
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine ; 
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine. 
Whose weakness married to thy stronger state 180 

Makes me with thy strength to communicate. 
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross, 
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss. 
Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion 
Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion. 

Antipholus of S. To me she speaks ; she moves me 
for her theme ! 
What, was I married to her in my dream ? 
Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this ? 
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss ? 
Until I know this sure uncertainty 190 

I '11 entertain the offer'd fallacy. 

Luciana. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for 
dinner. 

Dromio of S. O, for my beads ! I cross me for a 
sinner. 
This is the fairy land ; O spite of spites ! 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 51 

We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites. 
If we obey them not, this will ensue, — 
They '11 suck our breath or pinch us black and blue. 

Luciana, Why prat'st thou to thyself and answer'st 
not? 
Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot ! 199 

Dromio of S. 1 am transformed, master, am I not ? 

Antipholus of S. 1 think thou art in mind, and so 
am I. 

Dromio of S. Nay, master, both in mind and in my 
shape. 

Antipholus of S. Thou hast thine own form. 

Dromio of S. No, I am an ape. 

Luciana. If thou art chang'd to aught, 't is to an ass. 

Dromio of S. 'T is true ; she rides me and I long 
for grass. 
'T is so, I am an ass ; else it could never be 
But I should know her as well as she knov/s me. 

Adriana. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool, 
To put the finger in the eye and weep, 
Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn. 210 
Come, sir, to dinner. — Dromio, keep the gate. — 
Husband, I '11 dine above with you to-day. 
And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks. — 
Sirrah, if any ask you for your master, 
Say he dines forth and let no creature enter. — 
Come, sister. — Dromio, play the porter well. 

Antipholus of S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in 
hell? 



^2 The Comedy of Errors [Act ii 

K. ^ing or waking ? mad or well-ad vis 'd ? 

Kr ^n unto these, and to myself disguis'd ! 

I 'li say as they say and persever so, 220 

And in this mist at all adventures go. 

Dromio of S. Master, shall I be porter at the gate ? 
Adriana. Ay ; and let none enter, lest I break your 

pate. 
Luciana, Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late. 

\Exeunt. 




ACT III 

Scene I. Before the House of Antipholus of Ephesus 

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus, Dromio of Ephesus, 
Angelo, a/z^ Balthazar 

Antipholus of E. Good Signior Angelo, you must ex- 
cuse us all ; 
My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours. 
Say that I linger'd with you at your shop 
To see the making of her carcanet, 
And that to-morrow you will bring it home. 
But here 's a villain that would face me down 
He met me on the mart, and that I beat him 
And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold. 
And that I did deny my wife and house. — 
Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this ? lo 

53 



54 The Comedy of Errors [Act m 

Dromio of E. Say what you will, sir, but I know 
what I know ; 
That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to show. 
If the skin were parchment and the blows you gave 

were ink. 
Your own handwriting would tell you what I think. 
Antipholus of E. I think thou art an ass. 
Dromio of E. Marry, so it doth appear 

By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear. 
I should kick, being kick'd ; and, being at that pass, 
You would keep from my heels and beware of an ass. 
Antipholus of E. You 're sad, Siguier Balthazar; pray 
God our cheer 19 

May answer my good will and your good welcome here. 
Balthazar. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your 

welcome dear. 
Antipholus of E. O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh 
or fish, 
A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish. 
Balthazar. Good meat, sir, is common; that every 

churl affords. 
Antipholus of E. And welcome more common, for 

that 's nothing but words. 
Balthazar. Small cheer and great welcome makes a 

merry feast. 
Antipholus of E. Ay, to a niggardly host and more 
sparing guest. 
But though my cates be mean, take them in good part ; 
Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors SS 

But, soft! my door is lock'd. — Go bid them let us in. 
Dromio of E. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, 
Ginn ! 31 

Dromio of S. \_Within\ Mome, malt-horse, capon, cox- 
comb, idiot, patch ! 
Either get thee from the door or sit down at the hatch. 
Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for 

such store, 
When one is one too many ? Go get thee from the door. 
Dromio of E. What patch is made our porter ? My 

master stays in the street. 
Dromio of S.\_ Within'\ Let him walk from whence he 

came, lest he catch cold on 's feet. 
Antipholus of E. Who talks within there ? ho, open 

the door ! 
Dromio of S. \_Within\ Right, sir; I '11 tell you when, 

an you '11 tell me wherefore. 
Antipholus of E. Wherefore ? for my dinner ; I have 
not din 'd to-day. 40 

Dromio of S. [ Within\ Nor to-day here you must 

not ; come again when you may. 
Antipholus of E. What art thou that keep'st me out 

from the house I owe ? 
Dromio of S.\_ Within'] The porter for this time, sir, 

and my name is Dromio. 
Dromio of E. O villain ! thou hast stolen both mine 
office and my name. 
The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame. 
If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place, 



^6 The Comedy of Errors [Act iii 

Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name or thy 

name for an ass. 
Luce. [ Within'\ What a coil is there, Dromio ? who are 

those at the gate ? 
Dromio of E. Let my master in, Luce. 
Luce. [ Within\ Faith, no ! he comes too late ; 

And so tell your master. 

Dromio of E. O Lord, I must laugh ! 50 

Have at you with a proverb — Shall I set in my staff ? 
Luce. [ Within] Have at you with another ; that 's — 

When ? can you tell ? 
Dromio of S. \Withiii\ If thy name be call'd Luce, — 

Luce, thou hast answer'd him well. 
Antipholus of E. Do you hear, you minion ? you '11 let 

us in, I hope ? 
Luce. [ Within'] I thought to have ask'd you. 
Dromio of S. [ Within] And you said no. 

Dromio of E. So, come, help ! well struck ! there was 

blow for blow. 
Antipholus of E, Thou baggage, let me in. 
Luce. [ Within] Can you tell for whose sake ? 

Dromio of E. Master, knock the door hard. 
Luce. [ Within] Let him knock till it ache. 

Antipholus of E. You '11 cry for this, minion, if I 

beat the door down. 
Luce. \_Within] What needs all that, and a pair of 

stocks in the town ? 60 

Adriana. [ Within] Who is that at the door that keeps 

all this noise ? 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 57 

Dromio of S. \_Within] By my troth, your town is 

troubled with unruly boys. 
Antipholus of E. Are you there, wife ? you might have 

come before. 
Adriana. [ Within] Your wife, sir knave ! go get you 

from the door. 
Dromio of E. If you went in pain, master, this knave 

would go sore. 
Angelo. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome ; we 

would fain have either. 
Balthazar. In debating which was best, we shall part 

with neither. 
Dromio of E. They stand at the door, master ; bid 

them welcome hither. 
Antipholus of E. There is something in the wind, that 

we cannot get in. 
Dromio of E. You would say so, master, if your gar- 
ments were thin. 70 
Your cake is warm within, you stand here in the cold ; 
It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought 

and sold. 
Antipholus of E. Go fetch me something ; I '11 break 

' ope the gate. 
Dromio of S. [ Within"] Break any breaking here, and 

I '11 break your knave's pate. 
Dromio of E. A man may break a word with you, sir, 

and words are but wind. 
Dromio of S. [ Within] It seems thou want'st break- 
ing ; out upon thee, hind 1 



58 The Comedy of Errors [Act III 

Dromioof E. Here's too much out upon thee! I 
pray thee, let me in. 

Droniio of S, \_Withi7i\ Ay, when fowls have no 
feathers and fish have no fin. 

Antipholus of E. Well, I '11 break in ; go borrow me a 
crow. 

Droniio of E. K crow without feather? Master, 

mean you so? 80 

For a fish without a fin, there 's a fowl without a feather; 

If a crow help us in, sirrah, we '11 pluck a crow together. 

Antiphohcs of E. Go get thee gone ; fetch me an iron 
crow. 

Balthazar. Have patience, sir ; O, let it not be so ! 
Herein you war against your reputation. 
And draw within the compass of suspect 
The unviolated honour of your wife. 
Once this, — your long experience of her wisdom, 
Her sober virtue, years, and modesty. 
Plead on her part some cause to you unknown ; 90 

And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse 
Why at this time the doors are made against you. 
Be rul'd by me : depart in patience. 
And let us to the Tiger all to dinner ; 
And about evening come yourself alone, 
To know the reason of this strange restraint. 
If by strong hand you offer to break in 
Now in the stirring passage of .the day, 
A vulgar comment will be made of it, 
And that supposed by the common rout 100 



^cene II] The Comedy of Errors 59 

Against your yet ungalled estimation 

That may with foul intrusion enter in, 

And dwell upon your grave when you are dead ; 

For slander lives upon succession, I 

For ever hous'd where it gets possession. j 

Antipholus of E. You have prevail'd ; I will depart 
in quiet, 
And, in despite of mirth, mean to be merry. 
I know a wench of excellent discourse. 
Pretty and witty, wild and yet, too, gentle ; 
There will we dine. This woman that I mean, no 

My wife — but, I protest, without desert — 
Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal ; 
To her will we to dinner. — \To Angelo\ Get you home 
And fetch the chain ; by this I know 't is made. 
Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine ; 
For there 's the house. That chain will I bestow — 
Be it for nothing but to spite my wife — 
Upon mine hostess there. Good sir, make haste. 
Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me, 
I '11 knock elsewhere, to see if they '11 disdain me. 120 

Angela. I '11 meet you at that place some hour hence. 

Antipholus of E. Do so. This jest shall cost me 
some expense. \Exeunt. 

Scene II. The Same 
Enter Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse 
Luciana. And may it be that you have quite forgot 
A husband's office ? shall, Antipholus, 



6o The Comedy of Errors [Act in 

Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot ? 

Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous ? 
If you did wed my sister for her wealth, 

Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness. 
Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth ; 

Muffle your false love with some show of blindness. 
Let not my sister read it in your eye ; 

Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator ; lo 

Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty ; 

Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger ; 
Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted ; 

Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint ; 
Be secret-false ; what need she be acquainted ? 

What simple thief brags of his own attaint ? 
'T is double wrong, to truant with your bed, 

And let her read it in thy looks at board. 
Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed ; 

111 deeds are doubled with an evil word. 20 

Alas, poor women ! make us but believe. 

Being compact of credit, that you love us ; 
Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve ; 

We in your motion turn, and you may move us. 
Then, gentle brother, get you in again, 

Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife ; 
'T is holy sport to be a little vain 

When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife. 

Antipholus of S. Sweet mistress, — what your name 
is else, I know not. 

Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine, — 30 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 6i 

Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not 

Than our earth's wonder, more than earth divine. 
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak ; 

Lay open to my earthly-gross conceit, 
Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, 

The folded meaning of your words' deceit. 
Against my soul's pure truth why labour you 

To make it wander in an unknown field ? 
Are you a god ? would you create me new ? 

Transform me then, and to your power I '11 yield. 40 
But if that I am I, then well I know 

Your weeping sister is no wife of mine, 
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe ; 

Far more, far more to you do I decline. 
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, 

To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears. 
Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote ; 

Spread o'er the silver weaves thy golden hairs, 
And as a bed I '11 take them and there lie. 

And in that glorious supposition think 50 

He gains by death that hath such means to die. 

Let love, being light, be drowned if she sink ! 

Luciana. What, are you mad, that you do reason 
so? 

AnUpholus of S. Not mad, but mated ; how, I do not 
know. 

Luciana. It is a fault that springeth from your eye. 

Antipholus of S. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, 
being by. 



62 The Comedy of Errors [Act ill 

Luciana. Gaze where you should, and that will clear 
your sight. 

Antipholus of S. As good to wink, sweet love, as 
look on night. 

Luciana. Why call you me love ? call my sister 
so. 

Antipholus of S. Thy sister's sister. 

Luciana. That 's my sister. 

Antipholus of S. No; 

It is thyself, mine own self's better part, 6i 

Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart, 
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim, 
My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim. 

Luciana. All this my sister is, or else should be. 

Antipholus of S. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I aim 
thee. 
Thee will I love and with thee lead my life ; 
Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife. 
Give me thy hand. 

Luciana. O, soft, sir ! hold you still ; 

I '11 fetch my sister, to get her good will. \^Exit. 

Enter Dromio of Syracuse 

Antipholus of S. Why, how now, Dromio ! where 
runn'st thou so fast ? 72 

Dromio of S. Do you know me, sir ? am I Dromio? 
am I your man ? am I myself ? 

Antipholus of S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my 
man, thou art thyself. 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 6;^ 

Dromio of S. 1 am an ass, I am a woman's man, 
and besides myself. 

Antipholus of S, What woman's man ? and how 
besides thyself ? 80 

Dromio of S, Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due 
to a woman ; one that claims me, one that haunts 
me, one that will have me. 

Antipholus of S. What claim lays she to thee? 

Drojnio of S. Marry, sir, such a claim as you would 
lay to your horse, and she would have me as a beast ; 
not that I, being a beast, she would have me, but that 
she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me. 

Antipholus of S. What is she ? 

Dromio of S. A very reverent body ; ay, such a 90 
one as a man may not speak of without he say 
sir-reverence. I have but lean luck in the match, 
and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage. 

Antipholus of S. How dost thou mean a fat mar- 
riage ? 

Dromio of S. Marry, sir, she 's the kitchen wench 
and all grease ; and I know not what use to put her to 
but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her 
own light. I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them 
will burn a Poland winter ; if she lives till dooms- / 
day, she '11 burn a week longer than the whole world. 

Antipholus of S. What complexion is she of ? 

Dromio of S. Swart, like my shoe, but her face 
nothing Hke so clean kept : for why, she sweats ; a 
man may go over shoes in the grime of it. 



64 The Comedy of Errors [Act ill 

Antipholus ofS. That 's a fault that water will mend. 

Dromio of S. No, sir, 't is in grain ; Noah's flood 
could not do it. 

Antipholus of S. What 's her name ? 

Dromio of S. Nell, sir ; but her name and three 
quarters, that 's an ell and three quarters, will not 
measure her from hip to hip. 112 

Antipholus of S. Then she bears some breadth ? 

Dromio of S. No longer from head to foot than 
from hip to hip. She is spherical, like a globe ; I 
could find out countries in her. 

Antipholus of S. In what part of her body stands 
Scotland ? 

Dromio of S. I found it by the barrenness ; hard 
in the palm of the hand. 120 

Antipholus of S. Where France ? 

Dromio of S. In her forehead; armed and re- 
verted, making war against her heir. 

Antipholus of S. Where England ? 

Dromio of S. I looked for the chalky cliffs, but 
I could find no whiteness in them ; but I guess it 
stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran be- 
tween France and it. 

Antipholus of S. Where Spain? 

Dromio of S. Faith, I saw it not ; but I felt it hot 
in her breath. 131 

Antipholus of S. Where America, the Indies ? 

Dromio of S. O, sir, upon her nose, all o'er em- 
bellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 6^ 

their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent 
whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose. 

Antipholus of S. Where stood Belgia, the Nether- 
lands ? 138 

Dromio of S. O, sir, I did not look so low. To 
conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, 
called me Dromio, swore I was assured to her, told 
me what privy marks I had about me, as, the mark 
of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart 
on my left arm, that I amazed ran from her as a 
witch ; 
And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith 

and my heart of steel, 
She had transform'd me to a curtal dog and made me 
turn i' the wheel. 

Antipholus of S. Go hie thee presently post to the road. 
An if the wind blow any way from shore, 
I will not harbour in this town to-night. 150 

If any bark put forth, come to the mart, 
Where I will walk till thou return to me. 
If every one knows us and we know none, 
' Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack, and be gone. 

Dromio of S. As from a bear a man would run for life, i 
So fly I from her that would be my wife. \Exit, 

Antipholus of S. There 's none but witches do inhabit 
here ; 
And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence. 
She that doth call me husband, even my soul 
Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister, 160 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 5 



66 The Comedy of Errors [Act in 

Possess 'd with such a gentle sovereign grace, 
Of such enchanting presence and discourse, 
Hath almost made me traitor to myself ; 
But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong, 
I '11 stop mine ears against the mermaid's song. 

Enter Angelo with the chain 

Angela. Master Antipholus, — 

Antipholiis of S. Ay, that 's my name. 

Angelo. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain. 
I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine ; 
The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long. 

Antipholus of S. What is your will that I shall do 
with this? 170 

Angelo. What please yourself, sir ; I have made it 
for you. 

Antipholus of S. Made it for me, sir ! I bespoke it not. 

Angelo. Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have. 
Go home with it and please your wife withal ; 
And soon at supper-time I '11 visit you, 
And then receive my money for the chain. 

Antipholus of S. 1 pray you, sir, receive the money 
now, 
For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more. 

Angelo. You are a merry man, sir ; fare you well. \_Exit. 

Antipholus of S. What I should think of this, I can- 
not tell; 180 
But this I think, there 's no man is so vain 
That would refuse so fair an offer 'd chain. 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 67 

I see a man here needs not live by shifts 

When in the streets he meets such golden gifts. 

I '11 to the mart and there for Dromio stay ; 

If any ship put out, then straight away. [Exit. 







Remains of Gymnasium at Ephesus 



ACT IV 

Scene I. A Public Place 
Enter Second Merchant, Angelo, and aji Officer 

2 Merchant. You know since Pentecost the sum is due, 
And since I have not much importun'd you ; 
Nor now I had not but that I am bound 
To Persia and want guilders for my voyage^ 
Therefore make present satisfaction. 
Or I '11 attach you by this officer. 

Angelo. Even just the sum that I do owe to you 
Is growing to me by Antipholus, 
And in the instant that I met with you 
He had of me a chain ; at five o'clock lo 

I shall receive the money for the same. 

68 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 69 

Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house, 
I will discharge my bond and thank you too. 

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of 
Ephesus, frojn the Courtesan'' s 

Officer. That labour may you save ; see where he 

comes. 
Antipholus of E. While I go to the goldsmith's house, 
go thou 
And buy a rope's end ; that will I bestow 
Among my wife and her confederates 
For locking me out of my doors by day. 
But, soft ! I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone ; 
Buy thou a rope and bring it home to me. 20 

Dromio of E. 1 buy a thousand pound a year ! I 
buy a rope ! \_Exit. 

Antipholus of E. A man is well holp up that trusts to 
you! 
I promised your presence and the chain, 
But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me. 
Belike you thought our love would last too long 
If it were chain 'd together, and therefore came not. 

Angela. Saving your merry humour, here 's the note 
How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat. 
The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion, 
Which doth amount to three odd ducats more 30 

Than I stand debted to this gentleman. 
I pray you, see him presently discharg'd. 
For he is bound to sea and stays but for it. 



70 The Comedy of Errors [Act IV 

Antipholus of E. I am not furnish 'd with the present 
money ; 
Besides, I have some business in the town. 
Good signior, take the stranger to my house, 
And with you take the chain and bid my wife 
Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof ; 
Perchance I will be there as soon as you. 

Angelo. Then you will bring the chain to her your- 
self ? 40 
Antipholus of E. No ; bear it with you, lest I come 

not time enough. 
Angelo. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about 

you? 
Antipholus of E. An if I have not, sir, I hope you 
have ; 
Or else you may return without your money. 

Angelo. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the 
chain ; 
Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman, 
And I, to blame, have held him here too long. 

A7itipholus of E. Good Lord ! you use this dalliance 
to excuse 
Your breach of promise to the Porpentine. 
I should have chid you for not bringing it, 50 

But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl. 

2 Merchant The hour steals on ; I pray you, sir, 

dispatch. 
Angelo. You hear how he importunes me; — the 
chain ! 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 71 

Antipholus of E. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch 

your money. 
Angela. Come, come, you know I gave it you even 
now. 
Either send the chain or send me by some token. 

Antipholus of E. Fie, now you run this humour out 
of breath. 
Come, where 's the chain ? I pray you, let me see it. 

2 Mercha7it My business cannot brook this dalliance. 
Good sir, say whether you '11 answer me or no ; 60 

If not, I '11 leave him to the officer. 

Antipholus of E. I answer you ! what should I answer 

you? 
Angelo. The money that you owe me for the chain. 
Atitipholus of E. 1 owe you none till I receive the 

chain. 
Angelo. You know I gave it you half an hour since. 
Antipholus of E. You gave me none ; you wrong me 

much to say so. 
Angelo. You vv^rong me more, sir, in denying it ; 
Consider how it stands upon my credit. 

2 Merchant. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit. 
Officer. I do, and charge you in the duke's name to 
obey me. 7° 

Angelo. This touches me in reputation. 
Either consent to pay this sum for me, 
Or I attach you by this officer. 

Antipholus of E. Consent to pay thee that I never had ! 
Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st. 



72 The Comedy of Errors [Act iv 

Angelo. Here is thy fee ; arrest him, officer. — 
I would not spare my brother in this case, 
If he should scorn me so apparently. 

Officer. I do arrest you, sir ; you hear the suit. 

Antipholus of E. I do obey thee till I give thee 
bail. — 80 

But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear 
As all the metal in your shop will answer. 

Angelo. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus, 
To your notorious shame ; I doubt it not. 

Enter Dromio of Syracuse, /;v;;2 the bay 

Dromio of S. Master, there is a bark of Epidamnum 
That stays but till her owner comes aboard. 
And then she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir, 
I have convey 'd aboard, and I have bought 
The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitae. 
The ship is in her trim, the merry wind 90 

Blows fair from land ; they stay for nought at all 
But for their owner, master, and yourself. 

Antipholus of E. How now ! a madman ! Why, thou 
peevish sheep. 
What ship of Epidamnum stays for me ? 

Dromio of S. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage. 

Antipholus of E. Thou drunken slave, I sent thee for 
a rope. 
And told thee to what purpose and what end. 

Dromio of S. You sent me for a rope's end as soon ; 
You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark. 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 73 

Antipholus of E. I will debate this matter at more 
leisure, 100 

And teach your ears to list me with more heed. 
To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight. 
Give her this key, and tell her, in the desk 
That 's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry 
There is a purse of ducats ; let her send it. 
Tell her I am arrested in the street. 
And that shall bail me. Hie thee, slave, be gone ! — 
On, officer, to prison till it come. 
[Exeunt 2 Merchant, Angela, Officer, and Antipholus of E . 

Dromio of S. To Adriana! that is where we din'd, 
Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband ; no 
She is too big, I hope, for me to compass. 
Thither I must, although against my will, 
For servants must their masters' minds fulfil. [^Exit. 

Scene II. The House of Antipholus of Ephesus 
Enter Adriana and Luciana 

Adriana. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so ? 

Mightst thou percei^ve austerely in his eye 
That he did plead in earnest ? yea or no ? 

Look'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily ? 
What observation mad'st thou in this case 
Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face ? 

Luciana. First he denied you had in him no right. 

Adriana. He meant he did me none, the more my 
spite. 



74 The Comedy of Errors [Act iv 

Luciana. Then swore he that he was a stranger here. 

Adriana. And true he swore, though yet forsworn 
he were. lo 

Luciana. Then pleaded I for you. 

Adriana. And what said he ? 

Luciana. That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me. 

Adriana. With what persuasion did he tempt thy 
love ? 

Luciana. With words that in an honest suit might 
move. 
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech. 

Adriana. Didst speak him fair ? 

Luciana. Have patience, I beseech. 

Adriana. I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still ; 
My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will. 
He is deformed, crooked, old and sere, 
Ill-fac'd, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere ; 20 

Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind, 
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind. 

Luciana. Who would be jealous then of such a one ? 
No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone. 

Adriana. Ah, but I think him better than I say, 

And yet would herein others' eyes were worse. 
Far from her nest the lapwing cries away ; 

My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse. 

Enter Dromio of Syracuse 

Dromio of S. Here ! go ; the desk, the purse ! sweet 
now, make haste. 



Scene II] The Comedy of Errors 75 

Luciana. How hast thou lost thy breath ? 
Drofnio of S. By running fast. 30 

Adriana. Where is thy master, Dromio ? is he well ? 
Dromio of S. No, he 's in Tartar limbo, worse than 
hell. 
x\ devil in an everlasting garment hath him"; 
One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel ; 
A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough ; 
A wolf, nay, worse, a fellow all in buff ; 
A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that counter- 
mands 
The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands ; 
A hound that runs counter and yet draws dry-foot 

well ; 
One that before the judgment carries poor souls to 
hell. 40 

Adriana. Why, man, what is the matter ? 
Dromio of S. I do not know the matter ; he is 'rested 

on the case. 
Adriana. What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose 

suit. 
Dro7nio of S. I know not at whose suit he is arrested 
well ; 
But he 's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I 

tell. 
Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in 
his desk? 
Adriana. Go fetch it, sister. — [^Exit Luciana7\ This 
I wonder at, 



76 The Comedy of Errors [Act iv 

That he, unknown to me, should be in debt. — 
Tell me, was he arrested on a band ? 

Dromio of S. Not on a band, but on a stronger 
thing, 50 

A chain, a chain ! Do you not hear it ring? 
Adriana. What, the chain ? 

Dromio of S. No, no, the bell. 'T is time that I were 
gone ; 
It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes 
one. 
Adriana, The hours come back! that did I never 

hear. 
Dromio of S. O, yes ; if any hour meet a sergeant, a' 

turns back for very fear. 
Adriana. As if Time were in debt ! how fondly dost 

thou reason ! 
Dromio of S. Time is a very bankrupt, and owes 
more than he 's worth to season. 
Nay, he 's a thief too ; have you not heard men say 
That Time comes stealing on by night and day ? 60 

If Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way. 
Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day ? 

Re-enter Luciana with a purse 

Adriana. Go, Dromio ; there 's the money, bear it 

straight. 
And bring thy master home immediately. — 
Come, sister ; I am press'd down with conceit — 

Conceit, my comfort and my injury. \_Exeunt. 



Scene III] The Comedy of Errors 77 

Scene III. A Public Place 

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse 

Antipholus of S. There 's not a man I meet but doth 
salute me 
As if I were their well-acquainted friend ; j 

And every one doth call me by my name. 
Some tender money to me, some invite me ; 
Some other give me thanks for kindnesses ; 
Some offer me commodities to buy. 
Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop 
And show'd me silks that he had bought for me, 
And therewithal took measure of my body. 
Sure, these are but imaginary wiles, 10 

And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here. 

Enter Dromio of Syracuse 

Droniio of S, Master, here 's the gold you sent me 
for. 
What, have you got the picture of old Adam new- 
apparelled ? 
Antipholus of S. What gold is this ? what Adam 

dost thou mean ? 
Dromio of S. Not that Adam that kept the Para- 
dise, but that Adam that keeps the prison ; he that 
goes in the calf's skin that was killed for the Prodi- 
gal; he that came behind you, sir, like an evil 
angel, and bid you forsake your liberty. 

Antipholics of S. I understand thee not. 20 



7 8 The Comedy of Errors [Act iv 

Dromio of S. No ? why, 'tis a plain case : he that 
went, hke a bass-viol, in a case of leather ; the man, 
sir, that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a 
bob and 'rests them ; he, sir, that takes pity on de- 
cayed men and gives them suits of durance ; he that 
sets up his rest to do more exploits with his mace 
than a morris-pike. 

Antipholus of S. What, thou meanest an officer? 

Dromio of S. Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band ; 
he that brings any man to answer it that breaks his 
band ; one that thinks a man always going to bed, 
and says, ' God give you good rest ! ' 32 

Antipholus of S. Well, sir, there rest in your fool- 
ery. Is there any ship puts forth to-night ? may we 
be gone ? 

Dromio of S. Why, sir, I brought you word an 
hour since that the bark Expedition put forth to- 
night ; and then were you hindered by the sergeant 
to tarry for the hoy Delay. Here are the angels 
that you sent for to dehver you. 40 

Antipholus of S. The fellow is distract, and so 
am I ; 
And here we wander in illusions. 
Some blessed power deliver us from hence ! 

Enter a Courtesan 

Courtesan. Well met, well met, Master Antipholus. 
I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now ; 
Is that the chain you promis'd me to-day ? 



Scene III] The Comedy of Errors 79 

Antipholus of S. Satan, avoid ! I charge thee, tempt 
me not. 

Dromio of S. Master, is this Mistress Satan? 

Antiphohcs of S. It is the devil. 49 

Dfvmio of S. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's 
dam, and here she comes in the habit of a light 
wench ; and thereof comes that the wenches say 
' God damn me ; ' that 's as much as to say ' God 
make me a light wench.' It is written, they appear 
to men like angels of light ; light is an effect of fire, 
and fire will burn ; ergo, light wenches will burn. 
Come not near her. 

Courtesan. Your man and you are marvellous 
merry, sir. Will you go with me ? We '11 mend our 
dinner here. 60 

Dromio of S. Master, if you do, expect spoon- 
meat, and bespeak a long spoon. 

Antipholus of S. Why, Dromio ? 

Dromio of S. Marry, he must have a long spoon 
that must eat with the devil. 

Antipholus of S. Avoid, thou fiend ! what tell'st thou 
me of supping ? 
Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress ; 
I conjure thee to leave me and be gone. 

Courtesan. Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner, 
Or, for my diamond, the chain you promis'd, 70 

And I '11 be gone, sir, and not trouble you. 

Drontio of S. Some devils ask but the parings of 
one's nail, 



8o The Comedy of Errors [Act iv 

A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin, 

A nut, a cherry-stone ; 

But she, more covetous, would have a chain. 

Master, be wise ; an if you give it her. 

The devil will shake her chain and fright us with it. 

Courtesan. I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the 
chain ; 
I hope you do not mean to cheat me so. 

Antiphohis of S. Avaunt, thou witch ! — Come, Dro- 
mio, let us go. 80 

Dromio of S. Fly pride, says the peacock ; mistress, 
that you know. 

\_Exeunt Antipholus and Dromio of S. 

Courtesan. Now, out of doubt, Antipholus is mad, 
Else would he never so demean himself. 
A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats, 
And for the same he promis'd me a chain ; 
Both one and other he denies me now. 
The reason that I gather he is mad, 
Besides this present instance of his rage. 
Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner, 
Of his own doors being shut against his entrance. 90 
Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits, 
On purpose shut the doors against his way. 
My way is now to hie home to his house, 
And tell his wife that, being lunatic. 
He rush'd into my house and took perforce 
My ring away. This course I fittest choose, 
For forty ducats is too much to lose. [Exit. 



Scene IV] The Comedy of Errors 8i 

Scene IV. A Street 
E^iter Antipholus of Ephesus a7id the Officer 
Antipholus of E. Fear me not, man ; I will not break 
away. 
I'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money, 
To warrant thee, as I am 'rested for. 
My wife is in a wayward mood to-day. 
And will not lightly trust the messenger. 
That I should be attach'd in Ephesus, 
I tell you, 't will sound harshly in her ears. 

Enter Dromio of Ephesus with a rope's-end 
Here comes my man ; I think he brings the money. — 
How now, sir ! have you that I sent you for ? 

Dromio of E. Here 's that, I warrant you, will pay 
them all. lo 

Antipholus of E. But where 's the money ? 
Dromio of E. Why, sir, I gave the money for the 

rope. 
Antipholus of E. Five hundred ducats, villain, for a 

rope? 
Dromio of E. I '11 serve you, sir, five hundred at the 

rate. 
Antipholus of E, To what end did I bid thee hie 

thee home ? 
Dromio of E. To a rope's-end, sir ; and to that 
end am I returned, 

Antipholus of E. And to that end, sir, I will welcome 
you. \_B eating him. 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 6 



82 The Comedy of Errors [Act iv 

Officer. Good sir, be patient. 

Dromio of E, Nay, 't is for me to be patient ; I 
am in adversity. 21 

Officer. Good now, hold thy tongue. 

Dromio of E. Nay, rather persuade him to hold 
his hands. 

Antipholus of E. Thou whoreson, senseless villain ! ■ 

Dromio of E. 1 would I were senseless, sir, that I ; 
might not feel your blows. 

Antipholus of E. Thou art sensible in nothing but 
blows, and so is an ass. 29 

Dromio of E. I am an ass, indeed ; you may prove 
it by my long ears, I have served him from the hour 
of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his 
hands for my service but blows. When I am cold, 
he heats me with beating ; when I am warm, he cools 
me with beating. I am waked with it when I sleep, 
raised with it when I sit, driven out of doors with it 
when I go from home, welcomed home with it when 
I return ; nay, I bear it on my shoulders, as a beggar 
wont her brat, and, I think, when he hath lamed me, 
I shall beg with it from door to door. 40 

Antipholus of E. Come, go along ; my wife is coming 
yonder. 

Enter Adriana, Luciana, the Courtesan, and Pinch 

Dromio of E. Mistress, respice finem, respect 
your end ; or rather, the prophecy like the parrot, 
beware the rope's-end. 



Scene IV] The Comedy of Errors 83 

Antipholiis of E. Wilt thou still talk? \_Beating him. 
Courtesan. How say you now ? is not your husband 

mad ? 
Adriana. His incivility confirms no less. — 
Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer; 
Establish him in his true sense again, 
And I will please you what you will demand. 50 

Luciana. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks ! 
Courtesan. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy ! 
Pinch. Give me your hand, and let me feel your 

pulse. 
Antipholus of E. There is my hand, and let it feel 
your ear. [^Striking him. 

Pinch. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man. 
To yield possession to my holy prayers. 
And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight ; 
I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven ! 

Antipholus of E. Peace, doting wizard, peace ! I am 

not mad. 
Adriana. O, that thou wert not, poor distressed 
soul ! 60 

Antipholus of E. You minion, you, are these your 
customers ? 
Did this companion with the saffron face 
Revel and feast it at my house to-day. 
Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut 
And I denied to enter in my house ? 

Adriana. O husband, God doth know you din'd at 
home, 



84 The Comedy of Errors [Act iv 

Where would you had remain 'd until this time, 
Free from these slanders and this open shame ! 

Antipholus of E. Din'd at home! — Thou villain, 

what say'st thou ? 
Dromio of E. Sir, sooth to say, you did not dine at 

home. 70 

Antipholus of E. Were not my doors lock'd up and I 

shut out ? 
Dromio of E. Perdy, your doors were lock'd and you 

shut out. 
Antipholus of E. And did not she herself revile me 

there ? 
Dromio of E. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you 

there. 
Antipholus of E. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, 

and scorn me ? 
Dromio of E. Certes, she did ; the kitchen-vestal 

scorn'd you. 
Antipholus of E. And did not I in rage depart from 

thence ? 
Dromio of E. In verity you did ; my bones bear 

witness. 
That since have felt the vigour of his rage. 

Adriiifia. Is 't good to soothe him in these con- 
traries ? 80 
Finch. It is no shame ; the fellow finds his vein. 
And yielding to him humours well his frenzy. 

Antipholus of E. Thou hast suborn 'd the goldsmith 

to arrest me. 



Scene IV] The Comedy of Errors 85 

Adriana. Alas, I sent you money to redeem you, 
By Dromio here, who came in haste for it. 

Dromio of E. Money by me! heart and good-will you 
might ; — 
But surely, master, not a rag of money. 

Antipholus of E. Went'st not thou to her for a purse 

of ducats ? 
Adriana. He came to me and I deliver'd it. 
Luciana. And I am witness with her that she did. 
Dromio of E. God and the rope-maker bear me 
witness 91 

That I was sent for nothing but a rope ! 

Pinch. Mistress, both man and master is possess'd ; 
I know it by their pale and deadly looks. 
They must be bound and laid in some dark room. 
Antipholus of E. Say, wherefore didst thou lock me 
forth to-day ? — 
And why dost thou deny the bag of gold ? 

Adriana. I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth. 
Dromio of E. And, gentle master, I receiv'd no gold ; 
But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out. 100 

Adriana. Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in 

both. 
Antipholus of E. Dissembling harlot, thou art false 
in all. 
And art confederate with a damned pack 
To make a loathsome abject scorn of me ; 
But with these nails I '11 pluck out these false eyes 
That would behold in me this shameful sport. 



86 The Comedy of Errors [Act iV 

Enter three or four and offer to bind him. He strives 

Adriana. O, bind him, bind him ! let him not come 
near me. 

Pinch. More company ! The fiend is strong within 
him. 

Luciana. Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he 
looks ! 

Antipholus of E. What, will you murther me ? — Thou 
gaoler, thou, no 

I am thy prisoner ; wilt thou suffer them 
To make a rescue ? 

Officer. Masters, let him go ; 

He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him. 

Pinch. Go bind this man, for he is frantic too. 

\They offer to bind Droinio of E. 

Adriana. What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer ? 
Hast thou delight to see a wretched man 
Do outrage and displeasure to himself ? 

Officer. He is my prisoner ; if I let him go, 
The debt he owes will be requir'd of me. 

Adriana. I will discharge thee ere I go from thee. 
Bear me forthwith unto his creditor, 121 

And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it. — 
Good master doctor, see him safe convey 'd 
Home to my house. — O most unhappy day ! 

Antipholus of E. O most unhappy strumpet! 

Dromio of E, Master, I am here enter'd in bond for 
you. 



Scene IV] The Comedy of Errors 87 

Antipholus of E. Out on thee, villain ! wherefore dost 
thou mad me ? 

Dromio of E. Will you be bound for nothing ? be 
mad, good master ; cry ' The devil ! ' 130 

Luciana. God help, poor souls, how idly do they 
talk! 

Adriana. Go bear him hence. — Sister, go you with 
me. — 
\Exeunt all but Adriana^ Luciana^ Officer, and Courtesan. 
Say now, whose suit is he arrested at ? 

Officer. One Angelo, a goldsmith ; do you know him ? 

Adriana. I know the man. What is the sum he owes ? 

Officer. Two hundred ducats. 

Adriana. Say, how grows it due ? 

Officer. Due for a chain your husband had of him. 

Adriana. He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it 
not. 

Courtesan. Whenas your husband all in rage to-day 
Came to my house and took away my ring — 140 

The ring I saw upon his finger now — 
Straight after did I meet him with a chain. 

Adriana. It may be so, but I did never see it. — 
Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is ; 
I long to know the truth hereof at large. 

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse with his rapier drawn, 
and Dromio of Syracuse 

Luciana. God, for thy mercy ! they are loose again. 
Adriana. And come with naked swords. 



88 The Comedy of Errors [Act iv 

Let 's call more help to have them bound again. 
Officer. Away ! they '11 kill us. 

\Exeitnt all but Antipholus of S. and Dt^omio of S. 

Antipholus of S. 1 see these witches are afraid of 

swords. 150 

Droinio of S. She that would be your wife now ran 

from you. 
Antipholus of S. Come to the Centaur ; fetch our stuff 
from thence. 
I long that we were safe and sound aboard. 

Droniio of S. Faith, stay here this night, they will 
surely do us no harm ; you saw they speak us fair, give 
us gold. Methinks they are such a gentle nation that, 
but for the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage 
of me, I could find in my heart to stay here still and 
turn witch. 

Antipholus of S. 1 will not stay to-night for all the 

town ; 160 

Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard. [Exeunt. 




Remains of Amphitheatre at Ephesus 



ACT V 

Scene I. A Street before a Priory 

Enter Second Merchant and Angelo 

Angelo. I am sorry, sir, that I have hinder'd you ; 
But, I protest, he had the chain of me. 
Though most dishonestly he doth deny it. 

2 Merchant. How is the man esteem'd here in the 

city ? 
Angelo. Of very reverend reputation, sir, 
Of credit infinite, highly belov'd. 
Second to none that lives here in the city ; 
His word might bear my wealth at any time. 

2 Merchant. Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he 
walks. 

89 



90 The Comedy of Errors [Act v 

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of 
Syracuse 

Angelo. 'T is so ; and that self chain about his neck 
Which he forswore most monstrously to have. n 

Good sir, draw near to me, I '11 speak to him. — 
Signior Antipholus, I wonder much 
That you would put me to this shame and trouble, 
And, not without some scandal to yourself, 
With circumstance and oaths so to deny 
This chain which now you wear so openly. 
Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment, 
You have done wrong to this my honest friend, 
Who, but for staying on our controversy, 20 

Had hoisted sail and put to sea to~day. 
This chain you had of me ; can you deny it ? 

Antipholus of S. 1 think I had ; I never did deny it. 

2 Merchant. Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it 
too. 

Antipholus of S. Who heard me to deny it or for- 
swear it ? 

2 Merchant. These ears of mine, thou know'st, did 
hear thee. 
Fie on thee, wretch ! 't is pity that thou liv'st 
To walk where any honest men resort. 

Antipholus of' S. Thou art a villain to impeach me 
thus ; 
I '11 prove mine honour and mine honesty 30 

Against thee presently, if thou dar'st stand. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 91 

2 Merchant. I dare, and do defy thee for a villain. 

\They draw. 

Enter Adriana, Luciana, the Courtesan, and others 

Adriana, Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake ! he is 
mad. — 
Some get within him, take his sword away. 
Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house. 

Droj7iio of S. Run, master, run ; for God's sake, take 
a house ! 
This is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd ! 
[Exeunt Antipholus of S. and Dromio of S. to the Priory. 

Enter the Lady Abbess 

Abbess. Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you 

hither ? 
Adriana. To fetch my poor distracted husband 
hence. 
Let us come in that we may bind him fast 40 

And bear him home for his recovery. 

Angela. I knew he was not in his perfect wits. 

2 Merchant. I am sorry now that I did draw on 

him. 
Abbess. How long hath this possession held the 

man? 
Adriana. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad. 
And much different from the man he was ; 
But till this afternoon his passion 
Ne'er brake into extremity of rage. 



92 The Comedy of Errors [Act v 

Abbess. Hath he not lost much wealth by wrack of 
sea? 
Buried some dear friend ? Hath not else his eye 50 
Stray'd his affection in unlawful love ? 
A sin prevailing much in youthful men 
Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing. 
Which of these sorrows is he subject to ? 

Adriana. To none of these, except it be the last ; 
Namely, some love that drew him oft from home. 

Abbess. You should for that have reprehended him. 

Adria7ia. Why, so I did. 

Abbess. Ay, but not rough enough. 

Adriajta. As roughly as my modesty would let me. 

Abbess. Haply, in private. 

Adriana. And in assemblies too. 

Abbess. Ay, but not enough. 61 

Adriana. It was the copy of our conference : 
In bed he slept not for my urging it ; 
At board he fed not for my urging it ; 
Alone, it was the subject of my theme ; 
In company I often glanced it ; 
Still did I tell him it was vile and bad. 

Abbess. And thereof came it that the man was mad. 
The venom clamours of a jealous woman | 

Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. | 70 
It seems his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing, 
And thereof comes it that his head is light. 
Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings. 
Unquiet meals make ill digestions ; 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 93 

Thereof the raging fire of fever bred, 

And what 's a fever but a fit of madness ? 

Thou say'st his sports were hinder'd by thy brawls. 

Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue 

But moody and dull melancholy, 

Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair, 80 

And at her heels a huge infectious troop 

Of pale distemperatures and foes to life ? 

In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest 

To be disturb 'd would mad or man or beast. 

The consequence is then thy jealous fits 

Have scar'd thy husband from the use of wits. 

Lticiana. She never reprehended him but mildly, 
When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and Vvdldly. — 
Why bear you these rebukes and answer not ? 

Adriana. She did betray me to my own reproof. — 
Good people, enter and lay hold on him. 91 

Abbess. No, not a creature enters in my house. 

Adriana. Then let your servants bring my husband 
forth. 

Abbess. Neither ; he took this place for sanctuary, 
And it shall privilege him from your hands 
Till I have brought him to his wits again, 
Or lose my labour in assaying it. 

Adriana. I will attend my husband, be his nurse, 
Diet his sickness, for it is my office. 
And will have no attorney but myself; 100 

And therefore let me have him home with me. 

Abbess. Be patient ; for I will not let him stir 



94 The Comedy of Errors [Act v 

Till I have us'd the approved means I have, 

With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers, 

To make of him a formal man again. 

It is a branch and parcel of mine oath, 

A charitable duty of my order. 

Therefore depart and leave him here with me. 

Adriana. I will not hence and leave my husband here ; 
And ill it doth beseem your holiness no 

To separate the husband and the wife. 

Abbess. Be quiet and depart ; thou shalt not have 
him. \^Exit. 

Luciana. Complain unto the duke of this indignity. 

Adriana. Come, go ; I will fall prostrate at his feet. 
And never rise until my tears and prayers 
Have won his grace to come in person hither 
And take perforce my husband from the abbess. 

2 Mefrhant. By this, I think, the dial points at five. 
Anon, I 'm sure, the duke himself in person 
Comes this way to the melancholy vale, 120 

The place of death and sorry execution, 
Behind the ditches of the abbey here. 

Aftgelo. Upon what cause ? 

2 Mefrhant. To see a reverend Syracusian merchant, 
Who put unluckily into this bay 
Against the laws and statutes of this town. 
Beheaded publicly for his offence. 

Angela. See where they come ; we will behold his 
death. 

Luciana. Kneel to the duke before he pass the abbey. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 95 

Enter Duke, attended ; ^geon bareheaded ; with the 
Headsman and other Officers 

Duke. Yet once again proclaim it publicly, 130 

If any friend will pay the sum for him, 
He shall not die; so much we tender him. 

Adriana. Justice, most sacred duke, against the 
abbess ! 

Duke. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady ; 
It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong. 

Adriana. May it please your grace, Antipholus my 
husband. 
Who I made lord of me and all I had 
At your important letters, — this ill day 
A most outrageous fit of madness took him ; 
That desperately he hurried through the street, — 140 
With him his bondman, all as mad as he, — 
Doing displeasure to the citizens 
By rushing in their houses, bearing thence 
Rings, jewels, any thing his rage did like. 
Once did I get him bound and sent him home. 
Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went 
That here and there his fury had committed. 
Anon, I wot not by what strong escape. 
He broke from those that had the guard of him. 
And with his mad attendant and himself, 150 

Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords. 
Met us again, and madly bent on us 
Chas'd us away, till raising of more aid 



96 The Comedy of Errors [Act V 

We came again to bind them. Then they fled 
Into this abbey, whither we pursued them ; 
And here the abbess shuts the gates on us, 
And will not suffer us to fetch him out. 
Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence. 
Therefore, most gracious duke, with thy command 
Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help. 160 
Duke. Long since thy husband serv'd me in my wars, 
And I to thee engag'd a prince's word. 
When thou didst make him master of thy bed, 
To do him all the grace and good I could. — 
Go, some of you, knock at the abbey-gate 
And bid the lady abbess come to me. — 
I will determine this before I stir. 

Enter a Servant 

Servant. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself ! 
My master and his man are both broke loose. 
Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor, 170 

Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire ; 
And ever, as it blaz'd, they threw on him 
Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair. 
My master preaches patience to him, and the while 
His man witii scissors nicks him like a fool ; 
And sure, unless you send some present help. 
Between them they will kill the conjurer. 

Adriana. Peace, fool ! thy master and his man are 
here, 
And that is false thou dost report to us. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 97 

Servant. Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true ; 180 
I have not breath 'd almost since I did see it. 
He cries for you and vows, if he can take you, 
To scorch your face and to disfigure you. — 

[Cry within. 
Hark, hark ! I hear him, mistress ; fly, be gone ! 

Duke. Come, stand by me ; fear nothing. — Guard 
with halberds ! 

Adriana. Ay me, it is my husband ! — Witness you, 
That he is borne about invisible. 
Even now we hous'd him in the abbey here ; 
And now he 's there, past thought of hum.an reason. 

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of 
Ephesus 

Antipholus of E. Justice, most gracious duke, O, 
grant me justice ! 190 

Even for the service that long since I did thee, 
When I bestrid thee in the wars and took 
Deep scars to save thy life ; even for the blood 
That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice. 

JSgeon. Unless the fear of death doth make me 
dote, 
I see my son Antipholus and Dromio. 

Antipholus of E. Justice, sweet prince, against that 
woman there ! 
She whom thou gav'st to me to be my wife, 
That hath abused and dishonour'd me 
Even in the strength and height of injury ! 200 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 7 



98 The Comedy of Errors [Act V 

Beyond imagination is the wrong 

That she this day hath shameless thrown on me. 

Ditke. Discover how, and thou shalt find me just. 

Antipholus of E. This day, great duke, she shut the 
doors upon me, 
While she with harlots feasted in my house. 

Duke. A grievous fault I Say, woman, didst thou 
so ? 

Adriana. No, my good lord ; myself, he, and my 
sister 
To-day did dine together. So befall my soul 
As this is false he burdens me withal ! 

Luciana. Ne'er may I look on day nor sleep on 
night 210 

But she tells to your highness simple truth ! 

Angela. O perjur'd woman ! They are both forsworn ; 
In this the madman justly chargeth them. 

Antipholus of E. My liege, I am advised what I say, 
Neither disturb'd with the effect of wine, 
Nor heady-rash, provok'd with raging ire. 
Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad. 
This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner. 
That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her. 
Could witness it, for he was with me then, 220 

Who parted with me to go fetch a chain. 
Promising to bring it to the Porpentine, 
Where Balthazar and I did dine together. 
Our dinner done, and he not coming thither, 
I went to seek him ; in the street I met him 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 99 

And in his company that gentleman. 

There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down 

That I this day of him receiv'd the chain, 

Which, God he knows, I saw not ; for the which 

He did arrest me with an officer. 230 

I did obey, and sent my peasant home 

For certain ducats ; he with none return'd. 

Then fairly I bespoke the officer 

To go in person with me to my house. 

By the way we met 

My wife, her sister, and a rabble more 

Of vile confederates. Along with them 

They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain, 

A mere anatomy, a mountebank, 

A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller, 240 

A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch, 

A living dead man ; this pernicious slave, 

Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer. 

And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse, 

And with no face, as 't were, outfacing me, 

Cries out I was possess'd. Then all together 

They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence, 

And in a dark and dankish vault at home 

There left me and my man, both bound together ; 

Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder, 250 

I gain'd my freedom and immediately 

Ran hither to your grace, whom I beseech 

To give me ample satisfaction 

For these deep shames and great indignities. 



LofC. 



lOO The Comedy of Errors [Act v 

Ange/o. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him, 
That he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out. 

Duke, But had he such a chain of thee or no ? 

Angela. He had, my lord ; and when he ran in here, 
These people saw the chain about his neck. 

2 Merchant. Besides, I will be sworn these ears of 
mine 260 

Heard you confess you had the chain of him 
After you first forswore it on the mart. 
And thereupon I drew my sword on you ; 
And then you fled into this abbey here. 
From whence, I think, you are come by miracle. 

Antipholus of E. 1 never came within these abbey- 
walls. 
Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me ; 
I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven ! 
And this is false you burden me withal. 

Duke. Why, what an intricate impeach is this ! 270 
I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup. — 
If here you hous'd him, here he would have been ; 
If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly. — 
You say he din'd at home ; the goldsmith here 
Denies that saying. — Sirrah, what say you ? 

Droniio of E. Sir, he din'd with her there, at the 
Porpentine. 

Courtesan. He did, and from my finger snatch'd that 
ring. 

Antipholus of E. 'T is true, my liege ; this ring I had 
of her. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors loi 

Duke. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here ? 
Courtesan. As sure, my liege, as I do see your 
grace. 280 

Duke. Why, this is strange. — Go call the abbess 
hither. — 
I think you are all mated or stark mad. 

\Exit one to the Abbess, 
j^geon. Most mighty duke, vouchsafe me speak a 
word. 
Haply I see a friend will save my life 
And pay the sum that may deliver me. 

Duke. Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt. 
^geon. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus ? 
And is not that your bondman, Dromio ? 

Dromio of E. Within this hour I was his bondman, 
sir, 
But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords ; 290 

Now am I Dromio and his man unbound. 

yEgeoit. I am sure you both of you remember me. 
Dromio of E. Ourselves we do remember, sir, by 
you; 
For lately we were bound, as you are now. 
You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir ? 
^geon. Why look you strange on me ? you know me 

well. 
Antipholus of E. I never saw you in my life till now. 
yEgeon. O, grief hath chang'd me sinceyou saw me 
last. 
And careful hours with time's deformed hand 



I02 The Comedy of Errors [Act v 

Have written strange defeatures in my face ; 300 

But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice ? 

Antipholus of E. Neither. 

jEgeon. Dromio, nor thou ? 

Dromio of E. No, trust me, sir, nor I. 

yEgeon. I am sure thou dost. 

Dromio of E. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not ; and 
whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to be- 
lieve him. 

j^geon. Not know my voice ! O time's extremity, 
Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue 
In seven short years, that here my only son 310 

Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares ? 
Though now this grained face of mine be hid 
In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow 
And all the conduits of my blood froze up. 
Yet hath my night of life some memory, 
My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left, 
My dull deaf ears a little use to hear. 
All these old witnesses — I cannot err — 
Tell me thou art my son Antipholus. 319 

Antipholus of E. I never saw my father in my life. 

yEgeon. But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy. 
Thou know'st we parted ; but perhaps, my son. 
Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery. 

Antipholus of E. The duke and all that know me in 
the city 
Can witness with me that it is not so ; 
I ne'er saw Syracusa in my life. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 103 

Duke. I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years 
Have I been patron to Antipholus, 
During which time he ne'er saw Syracusa. 
I see thy age and dangers make thee dote. 330 

Re-enter Abbess, with Antipholus of Syracuse and 
Dromio of Syracuse 

Abbess, Most mighty duke, behold a man much 

wrong'd. \All gather to see them. 

Adriana. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive 

me. 
Duke. One of these men is Genius to the other ; 
And so of these. Which is the natural man, 
And which the spirit ? who deciphers them ? 

Dromio of S. I, sir, am Dromio ; command him 

away. 
Dromio of E. I, sir, am Dromio ; pray, let me stay. 
Antipholus of S. ^Egeon art thou not ? or else his 

ghost ? 
Dromio of S. O, my old master! who hath bound 

him here ? 
Abbess. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds 
And gain a husband by his liberty. — 341 

Speak, old ^geon, if thou be'st the man * 
That hadst a wife once call'd Emilia 
That bore thee at a burden two fair sons, — 
O, if thou be'st the same .^geon, speak, 
And speak unto the same Emilia ! 

^geon. If I dream not, thou art ^meha ; 



I04 The Comedy of Errors [Act v 

If thou art she, tell me where is that son 
That floated with thee on the fatal raft ? 

Abbess. By men of Epidamnum he and I 350 

And the twin Dromio all were taken up ; 
But by and by rude fishermen of Corinth 
By force took Dromio and my son from them, 
And me they left with those of Epidamnum. 
What then became of them I cannot tell ; 
I to this fortune that you see me in. 

Duke. Why, here begins his morning story right : 
These two Antipholuses, these two so Hke, 
And these two Dromios, one in semblance, — 
Besides her urging of her wrack at sea, — 360 

These are the parents to these children, 
Which accidentally are met together. — • 
Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first ? 

Antipholus of S. No, sir, not I ; I came from Syracuse. 

Duke. Stay, stand apart ; I know not which is which. 

Antipholus of E. I came from Corinth, my most 
gracious lord, — 

Drojnio of E. And I with him. 

Antipholus of E. Brought to this town by that most 
famous warrior, 
Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle. 

Adriana. Which of you two did dine with me 
to-day ? 370 

Antipholus of S. I, gentle mistress. 

Adriana. And are not you my husband ? 

Antipholus of E. No ; I say nay to that. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 105 

Antipholus of S. And so do I ; yet did she call me so, 
And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here. 
Did call me brother. — \To Luciand\ What I told you 

then, 
I hope I shall have leisure to make good. 
If this be not a dream I see and hear. 

Angelo. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me. 

Antipholus of S. I think it be, sir ; I deny it not. 

Antipholus of E. And you, sir, for this chain arrested 
me. 380 

A7igelo. I think I did, sir ; I deny it not. 

Adiiana. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail. 
By Dromio ; but I think he brought it not. 

Dromio of E. No, none by me. 

Antipholus of S. This purse of ducats I receiv'd 
from you 
And Dromio my man did bring them me. 
I see we still did meet each other's man. 
And I was ta'en for him, and he for me. 
And thereupon these errors all arose. 

Antipholus of E. These ducats pawn I for my father 
here. 390 

Duke. It shall not need ; thy father hath his life. 

Courtesan. Sir, I must have that diamond from you. 

Antipholus of E. There, take it; and much thanks 
for my good cheer. 

Abbess. Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains 
To go with us into the abbey here 
And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes ; — 



io6 The Comedy of Errors [Act v 

And all that are assembled in this place, 

That by this sympathized one day's error 

Have suffered wrong, go keep us company, 

And we shall make full satisfaction. — 400 

Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail 

Of you, my sons, and till this present hour 

My heavy burthen ne'er delivered. — 

The duke, my husband, and my children both, 

And you the calendars of their nativity, 

Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me ; 

After so long grief, such nativity ! 

Duke. With all my heart, I '11 gossip at this feast. 
\_Exeunt all but Antipholus of S., Anfipholus of E., 
Dromio of S., and Dromio of E. 
Dromio of S. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from 

shipboard ? 
Antipholus of E. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast 
thou embark'd ? 410 

Dromio of S. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the 

Centaur. 
Anfipholus of S. He speaks to me. — I am your 
master, Dromio. 
Come, go with us ; we '11 look to that anon. 
Embrace thy brother there ; rejoice with him. 

\_Exeunt Antipholus of S. and Antipholus of E, 
Dromio of S. There is a fat friend at your master's 
house 
That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner ; 
She now shall be my sister, not my wife. 



Scene I] The Comedy of Errors 107 

Dromio of E. Methinks you are my glass, and not 
my brother ; 
I see by you I am a sweet-fac'd youth. 
Will you walk in to see their gossiping ? 420 

Dromio of S. Not I, sir ; you are my elder. 
Dromio of E. That 's a question ; hov/ shall we try 

it? 
Dromio of S. We '11 draw cuts for the senior ; till 

then lead thou first. 
Dromio of E. Nay, then, thus : 
We came into the world hke brother and brother ; 
And now let 's go hand in hand, not one before another. 

\Exetint, 



NOTES 





Medal of Ephesus 



NOTES 

Introduction 



The Metre of the Play. — It should be understood at the 
outset that metre, or the mechanism of verse, is something alto- 
gether distinct from the music of verse. The one is matter of rule, 
the other of taste and feeling. Music is not an absolute necessity 
of verse ; the metrical form is a necessity, being that which con- 
stitutes the verse. 

The plays of Shakespeare (with the exception of rhymed pas- 
sages, and of occasional songs and interludes) are all in unrhymed 
or blank verse ; and the normal form of this blank verse is illus- 
trated by i. 1 . 34 of the present play : " Was wrought by nature, 
not by vile offence." 

This line, it will be seen, consists of ten syllables, with the even 
syllables (2d, 4th, 6th, 8th, and loth) accented, the odd syllables 
(ist, 3d, etc.) being unaccented. Theoretically, it is made up of 
five y^^/ of two syllables each, with the accent on the second sylla- 
ble. Such a foot is called an iambus (plural, iambuses, or the Latin 
iambi), and the form of verse is called iambic. 

This fundamental law of Shakespeare's verse is subject to certain 
modifications, the most important of which are as follows : — 

I. After the tenth syllable an unaccented syllable (or even two 
such syllables) may be added, forming what is sometimes called a 

III 



112 Notes 

female line ; as in i. i. 51 : "And, which was strange, the one so 
like the other." The rhythm is complete with the first syllable of 
other, the second being an extra eleventh syllable. In v. i. 196 
(" I see my son Antipholus and Dromio ") we have two extra 
syllables, the rhythm being complete with the first syllable of 
Dromio. 

2. The accent in any part of the verse may be shifted from an 
even to an odd syllable; as in i. I. 3: "Merchant of Syracusa, 
plead no more; " and 6: " Sprung from the rancorous outrage of 
your duke." In both lines the accent is shifted from the second 
to the first syllable. This change occurs very rarely in the tenth 
syllable, and seldom in the fourth ; and it is not allowable in two 
successive accented syllables. 

3. An extra unaccented syllable may occur in any part of the 
line; as in i. I. 6, 9, and 15. In 6 the second syllable of rancorous 
is superfluous ; in 9 that of rigorous ; and in 15 the word To. 

4. Any unaccented syllable, occurring in an even place immedi- 
ately before or after an even syllable which is properly accented, is 
reckoned as accented for the purposes of the verse ; as, for instance, 
in lines 3 and 32. In 3 the first syllable of Syracusa, and in 32 
the last of unspeakable, are metrically equivalent to accented sylla- 
bles ; and so with the last syllable of countrymen in 7, of Ephesus 
in 16 and 30, oi punishment in 46, and of delivered (quadrisyllable) 
in 54. 

5. In many instances in Shakespeare words must be lengthened 
in order to fill out the rhythm : — 

(«) In a large class of words in which e or i is followed by an- 
other vowel, the e or i is made a separate syllable ; as ocean, opin- 
ion, soldier, patience (see on iii. I. g'^) , partial, marriage, etc. For 
instance, in this play, i. I. 21 (" Unless a thousand marks be levied ") 
appears to have only nine syllables, but levied is a trisyllable ; and 
the same is true oi passion in v. I. 47 : " But till this afternoon his 
passion." This lengthening occurs most frequently at the end of 
the line, and is common in this and other early plays. See, for in- 



Notes 



113 



stance, on licentious (ii. 2. 136), contagion (ii. 2. 149), successio?i 
and possession (iii. 2. 104, 105), illusions (iv. 3. 42), satisjaction 
(iv. I. 5, V. I. 400), digestions (v. i.'74), etc. 

(<^) Many monosyllables ending in r, re, rs, res, preceded by a 
long vowel or diphthong, are often made dissyllables ; as fare, fear, 
dear, fire, hair, hour (see on iii. I. 121), hire (see on iv. I. 95), 
your, etc. In v. i. 45 ("This week he hath been heavy, sour, 
sad ") sour is a dissyllable. If the word is repeated in a verse it is 
often both monosyllable and dissyllable ; as in M. of V. iii. 2. 20 : 
" And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so," where either yours 
(preferably the first) is a dissyllable, the other being a monosylla- 
ble. In y. C. iii. I. 172: "As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity," the 
first fire is a dissyllable. 

{c) Words containing / or r, preceded by another consonant, are 
often pronounced as if a vowel came between or after the con- 
sonants ; as in this play, v. i. 359 : "And these two Dromios, one 
in semblance " [sembl(e)ance] and v. i. 361 : "These are the 
parents of these children " (childeren, the original form of the 
word). See also AWs Well, iii. 5. 43: "If you will tarry, holy 
pilgrim" [pilg(e)rim]; W. T. iv. 4. 76: "Grace and remem- 
brance [rememb(e) ranee] be to you both!" etc. 

(^) Monosyllabic exclamations {ay, O, yea, nay, hail, etc.) and 
monosyllables otherwise emphasized are similarly lengthened ; also 
certain longer words; as comniandement in M. of V. iv. i. 451; 
safety (trisyllable) in Ha?n. i. 3. 21; business (trisyllable, as origi- 
nally pronounced) in /. C. iv. i. 22: "To groan and sweat under 
the business " (so in several other passages) ; and other words 
mentioned in the notes to the plays in which they occur. 

6. Words are also contracted for metrical reasons, like plurals 
and possessives ending in a sibilant, as balance, horse (for horses 
and horse's), princess, sense, marriage (plural and possessive), 
image, etc. So with many adjectives in the superlative (like coldest, 
stern' St, kindest, secret' st, etc.), and certain other words. See, for 
instance, note on zvhether, iv. i. 60, and on towards, i. i. 87. 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 8 



114 Notes 

7. The accent of words is also varied in many instances for met- 
rical reasons. Thus we find both revenue and revenue in the first 
scene of the M. N. D. (lines 6 and 158), cSnjure (see on iv. 3. 68) 
and conjure, pursue and pursue, distinct and distinct, etc. 

These instances of variable accent must not be confounded with 
those in which words were uniformly accented differently in the 
time of Shakespeare ; like aspect (see on ii. 2. 32), impdrtune (see 
on i. I. 126, iv. I. 2, 53), sepulchre (verb), per sever (see on ii. 2, 
220), perseverance, rheumatic, etc. 

8. Alexandrines, or verses of twelve syllables, with six accents, 
occur here and there in the plays. They must not be confounded 
with female lines with two extra syllables (see on i above) or with 
other lines in which two extra unaccented syllables may occur. 
Examples in this play are ii.'2. 223, iii. i. i, iv. i. 41, v. i. 174, 208, 
etc. 

9. Incomplete verses, of one or more syllables, are scattered 
through the plays. See i. i. 61, 156, i. 2. 16, etc. 

10. Doggerel measure is used in the very earliest comedies 
(Z. L. L. and the present play in particular) in the mouths of 
comic characters, but never anywhere in plays written after 1598. 
There are about a hundred lines of it in this play. 

11. Rhyme ozQ.y\x^ frequently in the early plays, but diminishes 
with comparative regularity from that period until the latest. Thus, 
in Z. Z. Z. there are about 1 100 rhyming verses (about one-third 
of the whole number), in M. N. D. about 900, in Rich. II. and 
R. and J. about 500 each, while in Cor. and A. and C. there are only 
about 40 each, in Temp, only two, and in W. T. none at all, ex- 
cept in the chorus introducing act iv. Songs, interludes, and other 
matter not in ten-syllable measure are not included in this enu- 
meration. In the present play, out of some 1400 ten-syllable 
verses, nearly 300 are in rhyme. 

Alternate rhymes are found only in the plays written before 
1599 or 1600. In the present play there are 64 lines; but in M. 
of V. there are only four lines at the end of iii. 2. In Much Ado 



Notes 115 



and A. Y. L. we also find a few lines, but none at all in subse- 
quent plays. 

Rkyjued couplets, or " rhyme-tags " are often found at the end of 
scenes; as in 9 of the ii scenes of the present play. In Ham. 
14 out of 20 scenes, and in Macb. 21 out of 28, have such "tags ; " 
but in the latest plays they are not so frequent. In Temp., for 
instance, there is but one, and in W. T. none. 

12. In this edition of Shakespeare, the final -ed of past tenses 
and participles in verse is printed -d when the word is to be pro- 
nounced in the ordinary way ; as in condemn^ d, line 25, and imposed, 
line 31, of the first scene. But when the metre requires that the 
-ed be made a separate syllable, the e is retained ; as in wished 
(dissyllable), line 90, and discovered (quadrisyllable), line 91. The 
only variation from this rule is in verbs like cry, die, sue, etc., the 
-ed of which is very rarely, if ever, made a separate syllable. 

Shakespeare's Use of Verse and Prose in the Plays. — 
This is a subject to v/hich the critics have given very little attention, 
but it is an interesting study. In the present play we find scenes 
entirely in verse (none entirely in prose), and others in which the 
two are mixed. In general, we may say that verse is used for what 
is distinctly poetical, and prose for what is not poetical. The dis- 
tinction, however, is not so clearly marked in the earlier as in the 
later plays. The second scene oi M. of V., for instance, is in prose, 
because Portia and Nerissa are talking about the suitors in a famil- 
iar and playful way ; but in T. G. of V., where Julia and Lucetta 
are discussing the suitors of the former in much the same fashion, 
the scene is in verse. Dowden, commenting on Rich. II., remarks : 
" Had Shakespeare written the play a few years later, we may be 
certain that the gardener and his servants (iii. 4) would not have 
uttered stately speeches in verse, but would have spoken homely 
prose, and that humour would have mingled with the pathos of the 
scene. The same remark may be made with reference to the sub- 
sequent scene (v. 5) in which his groom visits the dethroned king 
in the Tower." Comic characters and those in low life generally 



ii6 Notes 

speak in prose in the later plays, as Dowden intimates, but in the very 
earliest ones doggerel is much used instead. See on lo above. 

The change from prose to verse is well illustrated in the third 
scene of M. of V. It begins with plain prosaic talk about a busi- 
ness matter ; but when Antonio enters, it rises at once to the 
higher level of poetry. The sight of Antonio reminds Shylock of 
his hatred of the Merchant, and the passion expresses itself in verse, 
the vernacular tongue of poetry. We have a similar change in 
the first scene ofy. C, where, after the quibbling " chaff " of the 
mechanics about their trades, the mention of Pompey reminds 
the Tribune of their plebeian fickleness, and his scorn and indig- 
nation flame out in most eloquent verse. 

The reasons for the choice of prose or verse are not always so 
clear as in these instances. We are seldom puzzled to explain the 
prose, but not unfrequently we meet with verse where we might 
expect prose. As Professor Corson remarks {Introduction to Shake- 
speare, 1889), " Shakespeare adopted verse as the general tenor of 
his language, and therefore expressed much in verse that is within 
the capabilities of prose ; in other words, his verse constantly en- 
croaches upon the domain of prose, but his prose can never be said 
to encroach upon the domain of verse." If in rare instances we 
think we find exceptions to this latter statement, and prose actually 
seems to usurp the place of verse, I believe that careful study 
of the passage will prove the supposed exception to be apparent 
rather than real. 

Some Books for Teachers and Students. — A few out of 
the many books that might be commended to the teacher and the 
critical student are the following : Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of 
the Life of Shakespeare (7th ed. 1887) ; Sidney Lee's Life of Shake- 
speare (1898; for ordinary students the abridged ed. of 1899 is 
preferable); Rolfe's Life of Shakespeare (1904); Schmidt's Shake- 
speare Lexicon (3d ed. 1902); Littledale's ed. of Dyce's Glossary 
(1902); Bartlett's Concordance to Shakespeare (1895) ; Abbott's 
Shakespearian Grammar (1873); Furness's "New Variorum" 



Notes 117 

ed. of the plays (encyclopaedic and exhaustive) ; Dowden's Shak- 
spere : His Mind and Art (American ed. 1881) ; Hudson's Life, 
Art, and Characters of Shakespeare (revised ed. 1882) ; Mrs. Jame- 
son's Characteristics of Wo7nen (several eds.; some with the title, 
Shakespeare Heroines^ ; Ten Brink's Five Lectures on Shakespeare 
(1895); 'Qoz.'si'?, Shakespeare and His Predecessors (1895); Dyer's 
Folk-lore of Shakespeare (American ed. 1884); Gervinus's Shake- 
speare Commentaries (Bunnett's translation, 1875); Wordsworth's 
Shakespeare^ s Knowledge of the Bible (3d ed. 1880); Elson's Shake- 
speare in Music (1901). 

Some of the above books will be useful to all readers who are 
interested in special subjects or in general criticism of Shakespeare. 
Among those which are better suited to the needs of ordinary 
readers and students, the following may be mentioned : Mabie's 
William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man (1900); Dow- 
den's Shakspere Primer (1877; small but invaluable); Rolfe's 
Shakespeare the Boy (1896 ; not a mere juvenile book, but treating 
of the home and school life, the games and sports, the manners, 
customs, and folk-lore of the poet's time) ; Guerber's Myths of 
Greece and Rome (for young students who may need information 
on mythological allusions not explained in the notes). 

Black's Judith Shakespeare (1884; a novel, but a careful study 
of the scene and the time) is a book that I always commend to 
young people, and their elders will also enjoy it. The Lambs' 
Tales from Shakespeare is a classic for beginners in the study of the 
dramatist ; and in Rolfe's ed. the plan of the authors is carried out 
in the Notes by copious illustrative quotations from the plays. 
Mrs. Cowden-Clarke's Girlhood of Shakespeare^ s Heroines (Ameri- 
can ed. 1904) will particularly interest girls ; and both girls and 
boys will find Bennett's Master Skylark (1897) ^^^ Imogen Clark's 
Will Shakespeare's Little Lad (1897) equally entertaining and 
instructive. 

H. Snowden Ward's Shakespeare's Town and Times (2d ed. 
1902) and John Leyland's Shakespeare Country (2d ed. 1903) are 



1 1 8 Notes [Act I 

copiously illustrated books (yet inexpensive) which may be particu- 
larly commended for school libraries. 

Abbreviations in the Notes. — The abbreviations of the names 
of Shakespeare's plays vv^ill be readily understood ; as T. N. for 
Twelfth Night, Cor. for Coriolanus, 3 Hen. VI. for The Third 
Part of Ki?tg Henry the Sixths etc. P. P. refers to The Passionate 
Pilgri7n ; V. and A. to Venus and Adonis ; L. C. to Lover'' s Com- 
plaint ; and Sonn. to the Sonnets. 

Other abbreviations that hardly need explanation are Cf {confer, 
compare), Fol. (following), Id. {idem, the same), and Prol. (pro- 
logue). The numbers of the lines in the references (except for the 
present play) are those of the "Globe " edition (the cheapest and 
best edition of Shakespeare in one compact volume), which is now 
generally accepted as the standard for line-numbers in works of ref- 
erence (Schmidt's Lexicon, Abbott's Grammar, Dowden's Primer. 
the publications of the New Shakspere Society, etc.). 



ACT I 

Scene I. — i. Solinus. The spelling of the name in the ist 
folio ; altered in the second, probably by an accident, to " Salinus." 
The name occurs nowhere else in the play. The folios have in- 
differently ^/z/z^/^^/z/jr and Antipholis ; but that the former is the 
correct form is shown by the rhyme in iii. 2. 2, 4. It is, of course, 
a corruption of the old Antiphilus. In the stage-directions of the 
folios the brothers are called Antipholus Erotes and Antipholus 
Sereptus. The surnames are doubtless errors for Errans (or 
Ej'ratictis^ and Surreptus, the latter being evidently derived from 
the Mencechjnus Surrepttis of Plautus, a character well known in 
the time of S. The Cambridge ed. quotes Brian Melbancke's 
Philotimus, 1582: "Thou art like Menechmus Subreptus his 
wife." 



Scene I] Notes 1 1 9 

2. Doom, Sentence ; as very often. Cf. Hen. V. iii. 6. 46, etc. 
4. / am not partial to infringe, etc. I have not the partiality, 
or leaning to one side, that would lead me to infringe, etc. 

8. Guilders. Dutch coin, here put for money in general. S. 
uses the word only here and in iv. i. 4 below. 

9. Bloods. The plural used, as often, because more than one 
person is referred to. 

11. Mortal. Deadly; as often. Cf. W. T. iii. 2. 149: "This 
news is mortal to the queen," etc. Intestine = "striking each 
combatant home. There is no question here of conflicts be- 
tween members of the same state" (Herford). 

12. Seditious. I'actious. S. uses the word only here and in 
2 Hen. VI. V. i. 37 (if that be his). 

13. Synods. In every other instance of the word in S. it is 
applied to an assembly of the gods. See A. Y. L. iii. 2. 158, Cor. 
V. 2. 74, Ham. ii. 2. 516, etc. 

Knight remarks here : " The offence which ^geon had com- 
mitted, and the penalty which he had incurred, are pointed out 
with a minuteness by which the poet doubtless intended to convey 
his sense of the gross injustice of such enactments. In The Taming 
of the Shrew, written most probably about the same period as The 
Comedy of Errors, the jealousies of commercial states, exhibiting 
themselves in violent decrees and impracticable regulations, are 
also depicted by the same powerful hand : — 

*' ' Tranio. What countryman, I pray? 

Pedant. Of Mantua. 

Tranio. Of Mantua, sir? — marry, God forbid ! 
And come to Padua, careless of your life? 

Pedant. My life, sir? how, I pray? for that goes hard. 

Tranio, 'Tis death for any one in Mantua 
To come to Padua ; know you not the cause ? 
Your ships are staid at Venice ; and the duke 
For private quarrel 'twixt your duke and him, 
Hath publish'd and proclaim'd it openly.' 



1 20 Notes [Act I 

At the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, the just principles 
of foreign commerce were asserted in a very remarkable manner in 
the preamble to a statute (i Eliz. c. 13) : 'Other foreign princes, 
finding themselves aggrieved with the said several acts ' — (statutes 
prohibiting the export or import of merchandise by English subjects 
in any but English ships) — ' as thinking that the same were made 
to the hurt and prejudice of their country and navy, have made 
like penal laws against such as should ship out of their countries in 
any other vessels than of their several countries and dominions ; 
by reason whereof there hath not only grown great displeasure 
between the foreign princes and the kings of this realm, but also 
the merchants have been sore grieved and endamaged.' The in- 
evitable consequences of commercial jealousies between rival states 
— the retaliations that invariably attend these ' narrow and malig- 
nant politics,' as Hume forcibly expresses it — are here clearly set 
forth. But in five or six years afterwards we had acts * for setting 
her Majesty's people on work,' forbidding the importation of foreign 
wares ready wrought, *to the intent that her Highness's subjects 
might be employed in making thereof.' These laws were directed 
against the productions of the Netherlands; and they were immedi- 
ately followed by counter-proclamations, forbidding the carrying 
into England of any matter or thing out of which the same wares 
might be made ; and prohibiting the importation in the Low 
Countries of all English manufactures, under pain of confiscation. 
Under these laws, the English merchants were driven from town to 
town — from Antwerp to Embden, from Embden to Hamburg ; 
their ships seized, their goods confiscated. Retaliation, of course, 
followed, with all the complicated injuries of violence begetting 
violence. The instinctive wisdom of our poet must have seen the 
folly and wickedness of such proceedings ; and we believe that 
these passages are intended to mark his sense of them. The same 
brute force which would confiscate the goods and burn the ships 
of the merchant would put the merchant himself to death, under 
another state of society. He has stigmatized the principle of com- 



Scene I] Notes 121 

mercial jealousy by carrying out its consequences under an uncon- 
strained despotism." 

14. Syracusians. The folios all have " Siracusians " or " Syra- 
cusians ; " and Boswell says the form " has the sanction of Bentley, 
in his Dissertation on Phalaris.^^ Burton also has it in his Anat. of 
Melancholy : "Or as that Syracusian in a tempest," etc. 

17. At Syracusian, etc. The folios have "any" before Syracu- 
sian; probably an accidental repetition of the word. The Cam- 
bridge ed. follows Malone in retaining it, making Nay niore a 
separate line, and joining be seen to the next. 

20. Confiscate. Confiscated. Cf. M. of V. iv. i. 332, Cyjnb. v. 
5. 323, etc. See also i. 2. 2 belov/. S. accents the word on either 
the first or the second syllable, as suits the measure. 

For dispose = disposal, cf. J^. John, i. I. 263 : "Needs must you 
lay your heart at his dispose." For another sense (disposition, 
temper), see 0th. i. 3. 403: "a smooth dispose." 

21. Levied. A trisyllable here. 

22. Quit. Remit, release from; as in M. of V. iv. i. 381 : "To 
quit the fine for one half of his goods," etc. 

26. This. Perhaps a contraction for This is ; as when printed 
"this' " in the folio sometimes. Done = carried into effect ; refer- 
ring to the sentence of death. 

32. Speak my griefs unspeakable. Perhaps a reminiscence of 
Virgil, yEneid, ii. 3 : " Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem." 

34. By nature, etc. " Not by any criminal act, but by natural 
affection, which prompted me to seek my son at Ephesus " (Malone). 
Cf. Temp. V. i. 76 : " Expell'd remorse and nature ; " Ham. i. 5. 81 : 
" If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not," etc. 

38. By me. The 2d folio adds the too (not in the ist), for the 
sake of the metre. Possibly our is a dissyllable, as Abbott makes it. 

41. Epidamnum. The folios have " Epidamium." Epidamnum 
is found in the English translation of the Mencechmi, 1595. The 
correct form is Epidamnus. 

42. At random. Without proper supervision. 



122 Notes [Act I 

43. Emhracements. Used by S. oftener than embraces. 

44. My absence was not six months old. Cf. ii. 2. 153 below: 
"In Ephesus I am but two hours old." See also Ham. iv. 6, 15. 

45. Herself. Reflexive personal pronouns are occasionally used 
in this way ; as in T. G. of V.\\. i. 174 : " Herself hath taught her 
love," etc. Cf. myself in 69 below. 

52. As could not. That they could not. By names = by sur- 
names, which were dropped when the brothers became separated. 
Clarke suggests that the twins at first had different names, and that 
afterwards one of each pair, in remembrance of his brother, took 
his name. Cf. 128 below. 

54. Meaner. The ist folio has "meane," the 2d "poor meane." 
Some modern eds. read " poor mean," but the poor two lines 
below is against the insertion of the adjective here. Meaner is 
adopted by most editors. 

56. For. For that, because ; as often. 

59. Motions. Proposals. Cf. M. W. i. i. 55, 121, iii. 4. 67, etc, 

64. Instance. Sign, indication ; as in iv. 3. 88 below. Cf. R. of 
Z. 1511 : "That blushing red no guilty instance gave ; " that is, no 
sign of guilt. See also T. G. of V. ii. 7. 70. 

72. Plainings. Complainings, wailing. Cf. R. of L. 559 : — 

" but his heart granteth 
No penetrable entrance to her plaining." 

See also Rich. II. i. 3. 175, etc. 

77. Sinking-ripe. Ripe for sinking, about to sink. Cf. "weep- 
ing-ripe" in Z. L. L. V. 2. 274 and 3 Hen. VI. i. 4. 172; and 
"reeling-ripe" in Temp. vi. i. 279. 

78. The latter-born. Changed by Rowe to " the elder-born," on 
account of 124 below. Clarke explains the text thus: "It seems, 
though the mother, ' more careful for the latter-born, had fastened 
him ' to the mast, yet that she had herself become fastened to the 
other end where her elder twin-son was secured." The somewhat 
confused description, it is suggested, may have been intended " to 



Scene I] Notes 1 23 

give the effect of the confusion of the wreck." I suspect, how- 
ever, that the poet, like Little Buttercup, " got those babies mixed." 
It has been suggested " that the children became exchanged in the 
confusion during the breaking-up of the ship." 

84. On who7n, etc. In relative sentences the preposition is often 
not repeated. Cf. W. T. iv. 4. 466 : " To die upon the bed my 
father died," etc. 

85. Either end the mast. Such omission of the preposition is 
not unusual. Cf. A. Y. L. i. 3. 118: "suit me all points like a 
man," etc. 

^i"]. Towards. Usually monosyllabic in S., but sometimes dis- 
syllabic, as here. In the latter case, the accent is variable. 

92. Amain. With main or force (as in "might and main"), 
vigorously, swiftly. Cf. V. and A. 5: "Venus makes amain unto 
him ; " Temp. iv. i. 74: "her peacocks fly amain," etc. 

93. Epidaurus. A town in Argolis on the Saronic Gulf. There 
was another Epidaurus in Laconia. A ship bound to Cenchreas, 
the port of Corinth on the Saronic Gulf, would take the same 
course as one sailing to or from Epidaurus. 

103. Splitted. Cf. 2 Hen. VI. iii. 2. 411 : "Even as a splitted 
bark." See also A. and C.w.i. 24 and v. i. 309 below. Elsewhere 
(as in Temp. v. i. 223) the participle is split. Helpful ship prob- 
ably refers to the mast, as Mr. F. A. Marshall suggests. 

114. Healthful. Salutary, advantageous. The later folios have 
" helpful." For shipwrack^d, see on v. i. 49 below. 

122. Dilate. Relate, narrate. Cf. 0th. i. 3. 153: "That I 
would all my pilgrimage dilate." 

123. Befallen. Not elsewhere followed by of in S. We find it 
with to in M. for M. iii. i. 227 and 2 Hen. VI. v. 3. t^t,. 

124. My youngest boy, etc. See on 78 above. 

126. Importuned. Accented on the second syllable, as regularly 
in S. Cf. iv. I. 2, 53 below. 

128. Reft. Cf. 115 above. For the present r^«?7f, see V. and A. 
766 : " reaves his son of life." The ellipsis of the nominative, as 



124 Notes [Act I 

in but retained, is not uncommon when it can be easily supplied. 
Cf. W. T, iv. 4. 168 : "They call him Doricles ; and boasts him- 
self," etc. 

129. In the quest. Cf. i. 2. 40 below. 

1 30. Of. Out of, from. The meaning of the passage is : " Whom 
(my lost son) while I was lovingly anxious to see, yet (in letting 
my other son go to seek him) / hazarded the loss of whom I loved 
(that other son himself) " (Marshall). 

133. Clean. Quite, entirely. Cf. Sonn. 75. 10: "Clean 
starved; " 2 Hen. IV. i. 2. no: "not clean past your youth," etc. 
See 2X^0 Joshua, iii. 17, Psalms, Ixxvii. 8, Isaiah, xxiv. 19, etc. 

138. Timely. Early, speedy. Cf. Macb. iii. 3. 7: "To gain 
the timely inn." S. uses the adjective only twice. 

144. Disannul. Annul; as in 3 Hen. VI. iii. 3. 81 : "Then 
Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt." See also Job, xl, 8, 
Galatians, iii. 15, 17, and Hebrews, vii. 18. The prefix is not 
negative, but intensive, as in dissever. 

146. The death. Death by judicial sentence j as often. Cf. M. 
N. D. i. I. 65, Rich. II. iii. i. 29, i Hen. IV. v. 5. 14, etc. 

150. Therefore, merchant, etc. A lame line, unless we accent 
merchant on the last syllable, which Abbott {^Gratmnar, 453) 
thinks doubtful. It does not help it much to accent therefdre, as 
he suggests. The trochee is always awkward as the second foot of a 
line. Limit thee this day = allow thee this day, limit thee to this day. 

151. To seek thy help by beneficial help. Pope changed the first 
help to " life ; " but to seek a person's life meant then, as now, to 
seek to destroy it. Cf. M. for M. i. 4. 72 : " Doth he so seek his 
life ? " See also M. of V. iii. 3. 21, iv. i. 351, Lear, iii. 4. 172, Per. 
iv. I. 90, etc. The repetition is quite in Shakespeare's manner, and 
the meaning is, " I '11 give you the extent of this day to seek for aid 
by charitable assistance " (Clarke). Dr. Ingleby {Shakes. Herme- 
neutics, p. 26) remarks that a better example than this cannot be 
found of Shakespeare's " custom of using a word in different senses 
twice in one Hne." 



Scene iij Notes 125 

154. If no. The reading of all the early eds., changed by Rowe 
to "if not"; but the use of ito is not unlike that in Teinp. i. 2. 
427 : " If you be maid or no," etc. Cf. v. i. 157 below. 

158. Lifeless. Spelt "liveless"in the early eds., as elsewhere. 
Schmidt suggests that lifeless e7td is " perhaps not the end brought 
on by death, but the end of his lifeless state, the end of his death- 
like life." Procrastinate occurs nowhere else in S. 

Scene II. — 2. Lest that. This use of that as a " conjunctional 
affix " is very common. 

7. The weary sun. Cf. K. John, v. 4. 35 : " Of the old, feeble, 
and day-wearied sun ;" and Rich. ILL v. 3. 19: "The weary sun 
hath made a golden set." 

9. Host. Lodge; as in ^. ^. iii. 5. 97: — 

" Come, pilgrim, I will bring you 
Where you shall host." 

S. uses the verb only twice. 

13. Peruse the traders. "In other words, look into the shop- 
windows" (Clarke). Cf. 2 Hen. IV. iv. 2. 94: — 

" And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains 
March by us, that we may peruse the men 
We should have cop'd withal." 

See also Ham. iv. 7. 137: "peruse the foils; " Cytnb. i. 4. 7: "to 
peruse him by items," etc. 

18. Mean. For the singular, cf. W. T. iv. 4. 89 : — 

" Yet nature is made better by no mean 
But nature makes that mean ; " 

S. also uses means in the same sense, both as singular and plural. 
Cf. "these means" in R. of L. 1140, and " that means" in M. of V. 
ii. I. 19, etc. 

19. Villain. Vassal, slave, ^geon had bought the Dromios 
(see i. I. 57 above). Malone cites R. of L. 1338: "The homely 
villain curtsies to her low ; " where a Roman slave is referred to. 



126 Notes [Act I 

26. Soon at Jive o'clock. Sometimes pointed " soon, at ; " but it 
is now before *' dinner-time " (see ii above), which was at noon in 
the time of S. Soon at five o'clock is explained by Malone as = 
" nearly at five o'clock ; either a little before or soon after that 
hour." Cf. iii. 2. 175 below. 

28. Consort you. Keep you company. Malone wanted to read 
"consort with you " (cf. R. and J. iii. i. 48), but in the same scene 
of R. and J. (135) we find" that didst consort him here." See also 
L. L. L. ii. I. 178: "Sweet health and fair desires consort your 
grace! " andy. C v. i. %'^\ "Who to Philippi here consorted us." 

37. Find his fellow forth. That is, find him out, as we now say. 
CL M. of V.\. I. 143: "To find the other forth." '^o forth of 
= out of (as in Temp. v. i. 160), from forth = from out (as in 
J^. John, iv. 2. 148), etc. 

38. Confounds himself. Is lost. Confound is often = destroy, 
ruin, and some see that sense here. On the passage, cf. ii. 2. 130 
fol. below. 

40. Unhappy. The ist folio has " (vnhappie a)," and the Cam- 
bridge editors conjecture " unhappier." 

41. The almanac of my true date. " Because they were both 
born in the same hour" (Malone). 

42. How chance. Cf. M. N. D. i. i. 129: "How chance the 
roses there do fade so fast ?" 2 Hen. IV. iv. 4. 20: " How chance 
thou art not with the prince thy brother ? " etc. 

45. Strucken. S. uses for the participle struck (or sirook^, 
striicken (or stroken'), and stricken. 

49. Stomach. Appetite. Cf. the play upon the word in M. 
of V. iii. 5. 92. 

50. Having broke. S. uses broke and broken interchangeably 
for the participle. 

52. Are penitent. That is, are doing penance. Cf. the noun in 
A. W. iii. 5. 97: "enjoin'd penitents." 

63. In post. That is, post-haste. Cf. R. and J. v. 3. 273 : 
"And then in post he came from Mantua," etc. In Rich. II. ii. 



I 



Scene II] Notes 127 

I. 296, the 1st and 2d folios have "in post," the 3d and 4th "in 
haste." We find "in all post" in Rich. III. iii. 5. 73, and "all in 
post" in R. of L. i. 

64. / shall be post indeed. That is, like a post in a shop, on 
which accounts were scored, or marked with chalk or notches. Cf. 
I Hen. IV. V. 3. 31: "here 's no scoring but upon the pate." 
Halliwell-Phillipps quotes The Letting of Humors Blood, etc., 
1611 : — 

" He scornes to walke in Paules without his bootes, 
And scores his diet on the vitlers post ; " 

and Lord Cromwell: " Would thou would'st pay me : a good four 
pound is it ; I hav 't o' the post at home." 

66. Clock. Halliwell-Phillipps cites Overbury, Characters: 
" onely the clocke of his stomacke is set to goe an houre after his " 
[that is, his master's] ; The Wandering few, etc. : " but, sir, the 
clocke of my belly bids me tell you 't is noone ; " and The Passen- 
ger of Benvenuto : " the clocke of my stomacke strikes inwardly, 
and importunately craves his due." 

72. Sir knave. Cf. 92 and iii. I. 64 below; also A. W. i. 3. 94. 
Elsewhere we find " sir boy," " sir page," etc. 

73. Disposed. Disposed of. Cf. T. A. iv. 2. 173 : "There to 
dispose this treasure," etc. 

75. The Phoenix. Private houses, as well as inns, often had dis- 
tinctive names. 

76. Stays. This use of the singular verb with two singular nouns 
as subject occurs not unfrequently. Cf. Cymb. ii. 4. 57 : "my hand 
And ring is yours," etc. See also ii. 2. 210 below. 

78. Bestow'' d. Stowed, deposited; as in Temp. v. i. 299: 
" Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it," etc. 

79. Sconce. For the contemptuous use of the word (= head), 
cf. ii. 2. 34, 35 below. See also Cor. iii. 2. 99 and Ham. v. i. no. 

80. Undispos' d. Used by S. only here ; and indisposed (in the 
modern sense) only in Lear, ii. 4. 112. 

82. Marks. The play upon the word is obvious. 



128 Notes [Act 11 

86. Will. For the use after should, cf. Hen. VIII. i. 2. 134 : — 
" that if the king 
Should without issue die, he '11 carry it so 
To make the sceptre his." 

89. Fast. There is an obvious play on " fasting and prayer." 
92. Forbid? Used by S. oftener than forbidden. See on 50 
above. 

96. C er-r aught. Overreached, cheated. Cf. Ham. iii. i. 17 : — 

" Madam, it so fell out that certain players 
We o'er-raught on the way." 

See also Spenser, F, Q. vi. 3. 50 : — 

" Having by chaunce a close advantage vew'd, 
He over raught him," etc. 

97. This town is full of cozenage. This, as Warburton notes, 
was the ancient reputation of Ephesus. See p. 185 below. 

99. Dark-working. Working in the night. Cf. 2 Hen, VI. i. 

4.18: — 

" wizards know their times : 
Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night," etc. 

It may mean working in secret, or by infernal agencies. 

102. Liberties of sin. " Sinful liberties" (Malone) ; or " licensed 
offenders " (Steevens). Marshall suggests that it may mean " lib- 
erties /c?^ sin." 

ACT II 

Scene I. — 15. Lashed. Scourged; with perhaps, as Clarke 
thinks, a quibbling reference to the other sense (fastened, bound). 
" A learned lady," according to Steevens, conjectured " leash'd," 
that is, " coupled like a headstrong hound." 

10-15. Why should, etc. Here, as in 26-33 below (so in iii. I. 
59 fol., iii. 2. 53 fol., etc.), we have an example of stichomythia 
(o-TixoAiu^^a), or dialogue in alternate lines (sometimes pairs or 



Scene I] Notes 129 

groups of lines), common in Greek tragedy and often imitated by 
the early English dramatists. S. uses it only in his earliest plays. 
Cf. T. G. of V. i. 2. 24-32, Rich. III. iv. 4. 213-219, 345-369, etc. 

16. Situate. Cf. confiscate in i. I. 20 above. 

17. His. Its; as very often before its came into general use. 
Cf. 1 10 below. 

26. To keep. In S. we often find to omitted or inserted where 
now it would not be so. 

30. Some other where ? That is, in some other direction, or after 
some other woman. Cf. Hen. VIII. ii. 2. 60 : " The king has sent 
me other where; " and R. and J. i. i. 204: "he's some other 
where." See also 104 below. Johnson conjectured " other hare," 
and compared A. Y. I. iv. 3. 18 : " Her love is not the hare that I 
do hunt ; " but there is no reason for any change. Clarke remarks 
that " other where gives the effect of ' other woman,' as in the next 
line home gives the effect of * his own wife.' " Other where is gen- 
erally printed as one word in the early eds. 

32. Pause. To rest, to be quiet. Dodd paraphrases the passage 
thus : " No wonder, says he, patience, unaffected by any calamity, 
untouched by any grief, can pause for consideration, can have lei- 
sure to recollect herself, and in imagination exert her virtues." 

33. No other cause. No cause to be otherwise. 

34. A wretched soul, etc. Cf. Much Ado, v. i. 20 : — 

" for, brother, men 
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief 
Which they themselves not feel ; . . . 
... 't is all men's office to speak patience 
To those that wring under the load of sorrow." 

39. Helpless. Affording no help, unavailing ; the most common 
meaning in S. Cf. V. and A. 604: "As those poor birds that help- 
less berries saw" (that is, painted berries); R. of L. 1027: "This 
helpless smoke of words doth me no right;" Id. 1056: "Poor 
helpless help ; " and Rich. III. i. 2. 13: "the helpless balm of my 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 9 



130 Notes [Act II 

poor eyes." The only other instances of the word in S. are i. i. 
157 above and R. of L. 756. 

41. Fool-begg' d. Probably = foolishly begged or demanded. 
Johnson says : " She seems to mean that patience which is so near 
to idiotical simplicity that your next relation would take advantage 
from it to represent you as z.fool, and beg\\it guardianship of your 
fortune." This seems far-fetched, but some endorse it as a possible 
play upon the phrase to beg a fool. Cf. Z. L. L. v. 2. 490 : " You 
cannot beg us ; " that is, cannot prove us to be idiots, and there- 
fore liable to be put under guardianship. Clarke paraphrases the 
passage thus : " This patience, so foolishly begged that I will prac- 
tise, will by you be left unpractised." 

49. Beshrew. A mild form of imprecation. 

Understand it. For the play upon the word {^ stand under) , 
Steevens compares T. G. of V. ii. 5. 28 : " My staff understands 
me" (cf. the context). He might have added T. N. iii. i. 89: 
" My legs better understand me, sir, than I understand what you 
mean by bidding me taste my legs." 

53. Doubtfully. Capell remarks : " Some readers may not be 
aware that doubtfully squints at, — redoubtedly, manfully ; " and 
Clarke says : " Dromio uses this word punningly in reference to 
two that it sounds something like — dotightily and redoubtably; 
meaning valorously, formidably ; " but this seems rather doubtful. 

57. Horn-mad, " Mad like a wicked bull ; mostly used with a 
reference to cuckoldom" (Schmidt). Cf. M. W. i. 4. 51, iii. 5. 
155, and Much Ado, i. i. 272. 

82. So round with you. " He plays upon the word round, 
which signified spherical applied to himself, and unrestrained, or 
free in speech or action, spoken of his mistress" (Johnson). For 
round = plain-spoken, cf. Ham. iii. i. 191 : "let her be round with 
him" (see Id. iii. 4. 5); 0th. i. 3. 90: "a round, unvarnish'd 
tale," etc. 

85. Case me in leather, "Still alluding to a foot-ball" 
(Steevens). 



Scene I] Notes 131 

87. Minions, Favourites ; here used with a touch of contempt. 
Cf. Temp. iv. i. 98: " Mars's hot minion," For the other sense 
(without contempt), cf. Macb. i. 2. 19, K.John, ii. i. 392, etc. 

88. Starve for a merry look. Cf. Sonn. 47. 3 : " When that 
mine eye is famish'd for a look; " and Sonn. 75. 10: "And by 
and by clean starved for a look." 

89. Took. The participle in S. is took, taken, or to* en. Cf. 1. i. 
no above and iii. 2. 168 below. 

94. Bait. Entice, allure. For the literal use, cf. M. of V. iii. 
1.5: "to bait fish withal." 

98. Defeatures. Disfigurement. Cf. v. i. 300 below. See also 
V. and A. ']2,(i : — 

" To mingle beauty with infirmities, 
And pure perfection with impure defeature." 

For /izzV = fairness, beauty, cf. V. and A. 1083: "Having no 
fair to lose ; " Id. 1086 : " to rob him of his fair," etc. See also 
M. N. D.'\.\. 182, A. Y. L. iii. 2. 99, etc. 

100. Deer, There is a play on deer and dear ; as in V. and A. 
231, M. W. V. 5. 18, 123, L. L. L. iv. I. 115, T. of S. v. 2. 56, 
I Hen. IV. v. 4. 107, Macb. iv. 3. 206, etc. Johnson quotes Waller's 
poem On a Lady's Girdle: — 

" This was my heaven's extremest sphere, 
The pale that held my lovely deer." 

loi. Stale. This also is played upon, "as carrying out the 
metaphor of the pursuit of game by a stale, or pretence, and as 
referring to that which has become stale, flavourless, unpalatable " 
(Clarke). For stale = decoy, bait, cf. Tepip. iv. i. 187 : " For stale 
to catch these thieves." In the present passage, the reference may 
be to the stalking-horse (see A. V. L. v. 4. in), behind which the 
sportsman approached his game. Stale is used in this sense by 
Greene and Jonson. Schmidt makes the word here = dupe, laugh- 
ing-stock ; for which cf, T. of S. i J. 58, etc. It has that sense 



132 Notes [Act II 

in the old translation of the MencBchmi : " He makes me a stale 
and a laughing-stock." 

103. Can with such wj'ongs dispense. That is, can excuse or 
put up with them. Cf. R. of L. 1070: "And with my trespass 
never will dispense;" Id. 1279: "Yet with the fault I thus far 
can dispense; " Id. 1704: "May my pure mind with the foul act 
dispense?" Son?t. 112. 12: "Mark how with my neglect I do dis- 
pense ; " and M. for M. iii. i. 135 : — 

" What sin you do to save a brother's life, 
Nature dispenses with the deed so far 
That it becomes a virtue." 

104. Other where. See on 30 above. 

105. Lets. Hinders ; as in Hmji. i. 4. 85 : " By heaven, I '11 
make a ghost of him that lets me ! " So the noun = hindrance ; 
as in Hen. V. v. 2. 65, etc. 

107. Alone, alone. For the repetition, cf. R. of L. 795 : " But 
I alone, alone, must sit and pine; " K. John, iii. i. 170: "Yet I 
alone, alone, do me oppose," etc. 

109. Jewel. "Any personal ornament of gold or precious 
stones" (Schmidt); a piece of jewelry. Cf. T. N. iii. 4. 228: 
" Here, wear this jewel for me, 't is my picture." In M. of V. \. i. 
224, it is = a ring ; in Cymb. ii. 3. 146, a bracelet, etc. The word 
was sometimes applied to mere curiosities, that would not be in- 
cluded in any list of jewelry nowadays. Thus we read in Purchas 
his Pilgrinies, 1625 (quoted by Halliwell-Phillipps) : "They found 
a great dead fish, round Hke a porcpis, twelve feet long. ... It 
was reserved as a jewell by the Queenes commandement, in her 
Wardrobe of Robes, and is still at Windsore to be scene." ' 

no. His. Its; as in 17 above. 

And though gold, etc. The passage is evidently corrupt in the 
folio, where it reads thus : — 

" yet the gold bides still 
That others touch, and often touching will, 



Scene II] Notes 133 

Where gold and no man that hath a name 
By falsehood and corruption doth it shame : " 

And though (or " and the'," as he printed it) is Hanmer's reading. 
Theobald transposed yei to the next line, and changed " Where " 
to Wear, and Heath suggested and so a man. This combination 
of slight emendations, as adopted by Clarke and others, makes the 
passage intelligible, though I am by no means certain that it restores 
it to its original form. Many other changes have been suggested. 
Warburton paraphrases the passage thus : " Gold, indeed, will 
long bear the handling ; however, often touching will wear even 
gold : just so the greatest character, though as pure as gold itself, 
may in time be injured by the repeated attacks of falsehood and 
corruption. " For the allusion to the touchstone as a means of test- 
ing the purity of gold, cf. K.John, iii. i. 100: — 

" You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit 
Resembling majesty, which, being touch'd and tried, 
Proves valueless ; " 

and Rich. III. iv. 2. 8 : — 

" Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch, 
To try if thou be current gold indeed ! " 

1 14. Since that. See on i. 2. 2 above. 

116. Fond. Doting. When the word does not mean simply 

foolish, it often blends that meaning with the other. Y ox fondly — 
foolishly, see iv. 2. 57 below. 

Scene II. — 3. Is wandered. Has wandered. The auxiliary 
be is often thus used with verbs of motion. Cf. " is walked " 
(2 Hen. IV. i. i. 3), "is rode" {^Hen. V. iv. 3. i), "is ascended" 
(/. C. iii. 2. 11), etc. . 

9. You know no Centaur? "Dromio of Ephesus did not say 
that he knew no Centaur ; the question was not put to him by 
Antipholus of Syracuse " (Collier). 



134 Notes [Act II 

15. Did not see you since. Cf. Hen. V. iv. 7. 58: "I was not 
angry since I came to France," etc. 

24. Earnest. A play upon the word as applied to a partial 
payment made to bind a bargain. We have the same quibble in 
T. G. of V. ii. I. 163: — 

*' Speed. No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you perceive her earnest? 
Valentine. She gave me none, except an angry word." 

26. Because that. See on i. 2. 2 above. 

28. Jest upon. Trifle with. The reading of the early eds., 
needlessly changed by some to "jet upon." For the latter, cf. 
T. A.\\. I. 64 etc. For jest upon, cf. T. N. iii. i. 69: "He must 
observe their moods on whom he jests; " and T. of S. iv. 5. 72 : — 

" or is it else your pleasure, 
Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest 
Upon the company you overtake? " 

29. Make a common of my serious hours. " That is, intrude on 
them when you please. The allusion is to those tracts of ground 
destined to common use, which are called commons'''' (Steevens). 
There is a play upon this sense of comt?ion in L. L. L. ii. i. 223: 
" My lips are no common, though several they be." 

32. Know my aspect. " Study my countenance " (Steevens) ; 
note whether I seem in the mood for it. Aspect is always accented 
on the last syllable in S. Cf. 116 below. 

34. In your sconce. Into your skull. In is often = into. We 
still say " fall in love." In his reply, Dromio plays upon the origi- 
nal meaning of sconce (a round fortification). 

49. Neither rhyme nor reason. The expression was an old 
one. Halliwell-Phillipps quotes, among other instances of it, 
Elyot's Dictionaries 1559: " Absurdus, inconvenient, foolysshe, 
agaynst all rime and reason." 

65. Lest it make you choleric. Cf. T. of S. iv. I. 173, where 
Petruchio, after throwing away the meat, says : — 



Scene II] Notes 135 

"I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away, 
And I expressly am forbid to touch it, 
For it engenders choler, planteth anger ; 
And better 't were that both of us did fast, 
Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric, 
Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh." 

In the Glass of Humours, a choleric man is advised " to abstain 
from all salt, scorched, dry meats, from mustard, and such like 
things as will aggravate his malignant humours," etc. 

66. Dry basting. This is said to mean " a beating with a stick, 
or other weapon not designed to shed blood." Cf. L. L. L. v. 2. 
263 : " all dry-beaten with pure scoff ; " R. and J. iii. i. 82 : " dry- 
beat the rest of the eight; " and Id. iv. 5. 126: "I will dry-beat 
you with an iron wit." Schmidt defines dry-beat as " thrash, cudgel 
soundly." 

77. By fine and recovery. A quibbling reference to the old legal 
process so called. Steevens remarks : " This attempt at pleasantry 
must have originated from our author's clerkship to an attorney. 
He has other jokes of the same school." Cf. M. IV. iv. 2. 225. 

82. Excrement. In its etymological sense of outgrowth^ like 
excrescence from the same Latin verb. Cf. M. of V. iii. 2. 87, 
L. L. L. V. I. 109, W, T. iv. 4. 734, and Ham. iii. 4. 119. The 
word is applied to the hair or beard in five out of the six instances 
in which S. uses it. In T. of A. iv. 3. 445 it is used in the modern 
sense. Fuller, in his Worthies of England, speaks of the hair as 
" the last of our excrements that perish." 

87. More hair than wit. This expression was proverbial. Ma- 
lone quotes Parnassus Biceps, 1656: — 

" To be Hke one who hath more haire than head; 
More excrement than body." 

Halliwell-Phillipps quotes the Banquet of Jests, 1657 : " One that was 
a great practitioner of physiognomie, reading late at night, hap- 
pened upon a place which said hayrie men for the most part are 



136 Notes [Act II 

dull, and a thick long beard betokened a fool. He took down his 
looking-glasse in one hand, and held the candle in the other, to 
observe the growth and fashion of his own, holding it so long, till 
at length by accident he fired it : whereupon he wrote on the mar- 
gent, Probatum est" (that is, it is proved!). 

88. Not a man of those, etc. " That is, those who have more 
hair than wit are easily entrapped by loose women, and suffer the 
consequences of lewdness, one of which, in the first appearance of 
the disease in Europe, was the loss of hair" (Johnson). 

93. Jollity. Changed by some editors to " policy." Marshall 
asks " Where is the jollity ? " The allusion is to the loss of hair 
from what is called the " French disease." See the preceding 
note. Hence a bald head was called a French crown; as in 
M. N. D. i. 2. 99, M. for M. i, 2. 52, and A. W. ii. 2. 23. 

98. Falsing. Delusive. Cf. Cymb. ii. 3. 74 : " yea, and makes 
Diana's rangers false themselves ; " where Schmidt thinks it may be 
an adjective. See also Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 30: "hisfalsed fancy ; " 
Id. iii. I. 47: "her falsed fancy," etc. In the Shep. Kal. May, we 
^Vi.^ falser = liar : " That of such falsers freendship bene fayne." 

102. Trimming. The folios have "trying," which Pope took 
to be a misprint of tyring or tiring, as perhaps it may be. Trim- 
ming is Rowe's emendation, and is generally adopted. 

106. No time. The reading of the 2d folio ; the ist has "in no 
time," which has been defended thus: "Antipholus had said, 
* There 's a time for all things.' This Dromio denies : * There 's no 
time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature.' 
Antipholus asks him to prove this ; and Dromio does it * by fine and 
recovery.' The bald man 'pays a fine for a periwig,' and so 're- 
covers' his lost hair ijt no time. He quibbles on no time to do 
a thing and the idiom * in no time ' = in an instant." The read- 
ing of the text is generally adopted. 

114. Wafts. Beckons. Cf. M. of V. y. i. 11 '.— 
" In such a night, 
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 



Scene II] Notes 137 

Upon the wild sea banks, and waft her love 
To come again to Carthage ; " 

where waft = wafted. See also T. of A. i. i. 70 : " Whom Fortune 
with her ivory hand wafts to her." In Ham. i. 4. 78 the folio has 
"wafts," the quarto "waves." In J. C. ii. i. 246 we find wafture 
(" wafter " in the folio) = waving of the hand. 

119. That never words were music, etc. Malone remarks that 
this is imitated by Pope in his Epistle from Sappho to Phaon : — 

" My music then you could for ever hear, 
And all my words were music to your ear," 

The "chiastic" arrangement in 1 19-123 is a favourite one with S. 
Cf. Macb. i. 3. 60 : 

" Speak thou to me, who neither beg nor fear 
Your favours nor your hate." 

123. To thee. Omitted by Pope to avoid the Alexandrine. To 
caj've to (or for) a person was considered a mark of affection. 
Halliwell-Phillipps cites Palsgrave, 1530: "Kerve this swanne, 
whyle I kerve to these ladyes; " Heywood, Workes, 1577: "Now 
carved he to al but her; " and Powell, Art of Thriving, 1635: 
"to be carved unto by Mistris Dorothy." 

127. Incorporate. Cf. M. N. D. iii. 2. 208 : — 

" As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds 
Had been incorporate." 

For the form, cf. consecrate, contaminate, and adulterate below. 
See also on i. i. 20 above. 

130. Fall. Transitive; as often. Cf. Temp. v. i. 64,/. Civ. 2. 
26, etc. 

136. Licentious. A quadrisyllable ; like contagion in 149 and 
inspiration in 172 below. 

137. Consecrate to thee. Cf. Sonn. 74. 6. "The very part was 
consecrate to thee," etc. See also on i. i. 20 above. 

139. Spurn at. Cf. Ham. iv. 5. 6 : " Spurns enviously at straws." 



138 Notes [Act II 

We find spurn against in K. John, iii. i. 142, and spurn upon in 
Rich. III. i. 2. 42. 

141. The stained skin, etc. Cf. R. of L. 806: — • 

" Make me not object to the telltale day ! 
The light will show, character'd in my brow, 
The story of sweet chastity's decay, 
The impious breach of holy wedlock vow." 

There is an allusion to the old custom of branding criminals in the 
forehead. Cf. Ham. iv. 5. 118: — 

" brands the harlot 
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow 
Of my true mother." 

143. Deep-divorcing vow. The hyphen is not in the early eds., 
and Schmidt compares "deep vow" in R. of L. 1847 and "deep 
oaths" in Sonn. 152. 9, etc. But S. is fond of compounds with 
deep, and this is probably one of them. Cf. deep- contemplative 
{A. Y. L. ii. 7. 31), deep-premeditated (i Hen. VI. iii. I. l), deep- 
revolving {Rich. III. iv. 2. 42), deep-searched {I. I. I. i. I. 85), 
deep-sweet ( F. and A. 432), deep-sworn {K.John, iii. i. 231), etc. 

149. Strumpeted, The word occurs again in Sonn. 66. 6: "And 
maiden virtue rudely strumpeted." Steevens quotes Heywood, 
Iron Age, 1632 : " By this adultress basely strumpeted." Contagion 
is a quadrisyllable here. 

151. I live unstain' d, etc. The folio reads: "I Hue distain'd, 
thou vndishonoured." Theobald printed " dis-stain'd," giving the 
dis- "a privative force; " but elsewhere in S. (see R. of I. 786, 
Rich. III. v. 3. 322, etc.) distain = stain. The real question is 
whether the line is closely connected with the preceding or not. 
If it is, we want unstained and undishoitotired : Be true to your 
marriage vows, and we shall both be free from stain. On the other 
hand, if the line is not directly dependent on the preceding, we 
should adopt the reading of Heath (" I live distained, thou dis- 
honoured ") : Be true to your vows, for now that you are untrue 



Scene II] Notes 139 

we both are dishonoured. I have no doubt that the former is the 
correct interpretation. The other makes the appeal in 150 a rather 
weak parenthesis, and the following line an equally feeble repeti- 
tion of what has gone before. Heath's reading will bear the mean- 
ing " I live distained, thou being dishonoured," or, as he puts it, 
" As long as thou continuest to dishonour thyself, I also live dis- 
tained." The fact, however, that this arrangement of the clauses 
is more forcible than that in his proposed text, is, to my think- 
ing, proof positive that his text is not Shakespeare's. Halliwell- 
Phillipps remarks that "very likely the n of unstain^ d wzs only half 
written with one stroke, this mistake often occurring with the n 
and the u in manuscripts of the period." 

153. Two hours old. Cf. i. i. 44 above. 

166. Compact Accented on the last syllable, as regularly in S. 
except in i Hen. VI. v. 4. 163, which may not be his. 

172. Inspiration. Metrically five syllables. See on 136 above. 

175 In my mood. In my anger ; as in T. G. of V. iv. i. 51, 
A. W. V. 2. 5, 0th. ii. 3. 274, etc. 

176. Exempt, "Separated, parted. The sense is, If I am 
doomed to suffer the wrong of separation, yet injure not with con- 
tempt me who am already injured" (Johnson). " Adriana means 
to say. Add not another wrong to that which I suffer already ; do 
not both desert and despise me" (Malone). In the old play of 
King Johfi, 1591, we find " Goe, cursed tooles, your office is ex- 
empt " (that is, taken away) ; and Collier quotes Greene, Maiden's 
Dream : — 

" I saw a silent spring, rail'd in with jeat, 
From sunnie shade or murmur quite exempt." 

177. Wrong not that wrong. Ci. R. of L. g^2)' "To wrong the 
wronger till he render right." For the use of jnore, cf. V. and A. 
78: " with a more delight ; " K. John,\\. i. 34: "a more requital 
to your love," etc. 

179. Thou art an elm^ etc. Suggested by the ancient practice 



140 Notes [Act 11 

of training the vine on the elm, so often alluded to by the classic 
writers. Cf. Virgil, Eclogues, ii. 70: *' Semiputata tibi frondosa 
vitis in ulmo est ; " and see also Georgics, i. 2 and ii. 221. For the 
figure, cf. Catullus, 62. 54 : " (vitis) conjuncta ulmo marito ; " Colu- 
mella, II. 2. 79: " ulmi vitibus maritantur," etc. Malone quotes 

Milton, Z'. Z. V. 215: — 

" or they led the vine 
To wed her elm ; she, spous'd, about him twines 
Her marriageable arms, and with her brings 
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn 
His barren leaves." 

182. If aught possess thee from me. That is, so as to deprive me 
of thee, or to dispossess me. 

183. Idle. "That produces no fruit" (Steevens). Cf. 0th. i. 
3. 140: "deserts idle" (that is, barren). See also idleness in 
Hen. V. V. 2. 51 and 0th. i. 3. 328. 

185. Conftision. Ruin; as often, Cf. ^. ^V. Z>. i. i. 149: "So 
quick bright things come to confusion," etc. Note also the use of 
confound =r\nn (see on i. 2. 38 above). 

186. Moves. Addresses, appeals to. Cf. ^. W.i.2.6: — 

" the Florentine will move us 
For speedy aid." 

See also I?ich. III. iii. 7. 140, Hen. VII I. ii. 4. 209, 217, etc. 

190. Know this sure uncertainty. That is, know this to be 
surely a thing uncertain. 

193. O, for my beads ! etc. " Dromio wishes for his rosary, to 
tell his beads, or say his prayers by, while he makes the sign of 
the cross against evil spirits" (Clarke). 

195. We talk, etc. The line is incomplete, and something has 
probably been lost. The 2d folio has " elves sprites ;" possibly a 
corruption of " elvish sprites," which many editors adopt. Theo- 
bald changed owls to "ouphs;" but owls have been associated 
v/ith goblins of the night from the old classical times, Steevens 



Scene II] Notes 141 

quotes Spenser, Shep. Kal. June: "Nor elfish ghosts, nor gastly 
owles doe flee ; " and Cornucopice, 1623 : — 

" Dreading no dangers of the darksome night, 
No oules, hobgoblins, ghosts, nor water-spright." 

Malone adds from The London Prodigal, 1605 : "I am sure cross'd 
or witch'd with an owl ; " and A Fig for Fortune, 1596: " No bug, 
no bale, nor horrid owlerie," etc. The owl referred to is the 
screech-owl, whose cry was considered ominous. Cf. Macb. ii. 
2. 3: — 

" It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman 
Which gives the stern 'st good-night." 

199. Sot. Dolt, blockhead (the Fr. sot^; as elsewhere in S. 
Cf. Temp. iii. 2. loi, M. W. iii. i. 119, etc. So j^/Zw/z = stupid, 
in A. and C. iv. 15. 79. 

204. ^Tisto an ass. As Dowden remarks in his Primer, this 
" looks as if when S. wrote the passage he were already thinking 
of his fairy world in M. N. D., of the pranks of Robin Goodfellow, 
and of Bottom's transformation to an ass." 

209. To put the finger in the eye and weep. That is, weep in a 
childish way. Cf. T. of S.'i. i. 'jg : — 

" A pretty peat ! it is best 
Put finger in the eye, — an she knew why." 

210. Laughs. For the number, see on i. 2. 76 above. 

213. And shrive you, etc. "That is, I will call you to confes- 
sion, and make you tell your tricks" (Johnson). 

215. Dines forth. That is, away from home. Cf. M. of V. ii. 5. 
37 : "I have no mind of feasting forth to-night," etc. 

217. Am L, etc. Capell marks this speech as " Aside." 

218. Well-advised. That is, in my right mind. Cf. v. I. 214 
below. 

220. Per sever. The only form of the word in S. We find it 
rhyming with ever in A, W. iv. 2. 36, 37 : — 



142 Notes [Act III 

" Say thou art mine, and ever 
My love, as it begins, so shall persever." 

So perseverance is accented on the second syllable ; as in Macb. iv. 
3. 93 : " Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness," etc. 



ACT III 



Scene I. — 4. Carcanet. Necklace. The word occurs again 
in Sonn. 52. 8 : "Or captain jewels in the carcanet." Steevens 
quotes, among instances of the word, Histriomaslix, 1610: — 

" Nay, I '11 be matchless for a carkanet, 
Whose pearls and diamonds plac'd with ruby rocks 
Shall circle this fair neck to set it forth." 

Cotgrave, in his Fr. Dict.y defines carcan as " a carkanet or collar 
of gold, &c. worne about the neck ; " and Coles, in his Latin Diet., 
renders carkanet by monile. Elsewhere in the play, as in 114 
below, it is called a " chain." 

8. Charged him with. Gave him in charge. 

15. Doth. Theobald thought it necessary to change this to 
" don't." " It appears," he says, " Dromio is an ass by his making 
no resistance ; because an ass, being kicked, kicks again." John- 
son replies to this : " He first says that his wrongs and blows prove 
him an ass ; but immediately, with a correction of his former sen- 
timent, he observes that, if he had been an ass, he should, when he 
was kicked, have kicked again." 

28. Gates. Dainties. Cf. the play upon the word in T. of S. 
ii. I. 190: "For dainties are all Kates." 

31. Ginn. The spelling of the folios. It is commonly explained 
as a contraction of Jenny ; but, according to Halliwell-Philhpps, it 
is = Joan. Gillian is given in Coles's Did. as — Juliana. 

32. Mome. Buffoon, fool ; ixova. Monius. Cf. Florio: " Capar- 
ronct a gull, a ninnie, a mome, a sot ; " Day, Blind Beggar of 



Scene I] Notes 143 

Bednal Green, 1659: "momes and hoydons, that know not chalk 
from cheese ; " and Mad Pranks of Tom Tram : " Old foolish 
doating moam." For tnalt-horse as a term of reproach, cf. T. of S. 
iv. I. 132: " you whoreson malt-horse drudge!" See also i Hen. 

IV. iii. 3. 10 : "a brewer's horse." For capon, cf. Much Ado, v. i. 
156. Patch — fool ; as in M. of V. ii. 5. 46, Temp. iii. 2. 71, Macd. 

V. 3. 15, etc. 

33. Hatch. A half-door ; that is, a door of which the upper 
half can be opened while the lower half remains shut; still com- 
mon in English cottages. See K. John, i. I. 171, v. 2. 138, etc. 

42. Owe. Own ; as very often. 

45. Mickle. Much; as in Hen. V. ii. i. 70, R. and J, ii. 3. 
15, etc. 

47. An ass. That is, the name of an ass. Cf. 15 above. 

48. Coil. Ado, "fuss." Cf. R. and J. ii. 5. 67: "Here 's such 
a coil ! " Cf. Temp. i. 2. 207, Much Ado, iii. 3. 100, M. N. D. iii. 
2. 339, R. and J. ii. 5. 67, etc. 

52. When ? can you tell? " A proverbial inquiry indicating a 
jeer at the improbability that the person addressed will get what 
he asks" (Clarke). Cf. 2 Hen. IV. ii. i. 43: "Ay, when ? canst 
tell ? " 

53. If thy na^ne be caWd luce. As the word luce meant a pike 
(cf. M. W.'\. I. 22: "The luce is the fresh fish," etc.), it has been 

!; suggested that there is a play upon pike, a spear, implying that she 
has given him a good thrust. 

54. / hope. Malone suggests that a line rhyming with this has 
been lost, and that the rhyming word was rope, with which he 

' threatens her. This conjecture is favoured by the fact that he 
|! afterwards sends Dromio to buy a rope's-end to use upon his " wife 
I and her confederates." Halliwell-Phillipps remarks that " the 
\ occurrence of a line without its corresponding rhyme, in comical 
\ doggerel dialogues of this description, is not without precedent." 

58. Ache is spelt " ake " in the folio, as it was pronounced when 
a verb. The noun was pronounced aitch, and the plural was a 



144 Notes [Act III 

dissyllable ; as in Temp. i. 2. 370, T. of A. i. i. 257 and v. i. 202. 
This difference is not anomalous, as some critics have supposed. 
Cf. speak and speech, break and breach, etc. Note that the verb 
regularly has the /^-sound. 

67. Part. Depart; as in T. N. v. i. 394: "We will not part 
from hence," etc. 

71. Your cake. Perhaps, as Clarke suggests, there is here a 
quibbling allusion to the proverb " Your cake is dough," for which 
see T. of S. i. i. no, v. i. 145. 

72. To be so bought and sold. " The meaning of this proverbial 
sentence is, that the person to whom it is applied is deluded and 
overreached by foul and secret practices" (Malone). Cf. K. John, 
v. 4. 10, Rich. III. V. 3. 305, T. and C. \\. i. 51 ; also Bacon, 
Hen. VII. : " All the newes ran upon the Duke of Yorke, that 
he had been entertained in Ireland, bought and sold in France." 

82. We HI pluck a crow together. Marshall notes that the same 
kind of a pun is found in The Captives of Plautus, where Tyndarus, 
referring to the custom of giving children birds of different kinds 
for their amusement, says that he had " tantum upupam." Uptipa 
means both a hoopoe and a mattock. 

86. Draw within the co7npass of suspect. That is, bring into 
suspicion. S. uses suspect as a noun some dozen times. 

88. Once this. " So much is certain " (Schmidt) ; " once for 
all" (Steevens). 

92. Made. Cf. A, V. L. iv. i. 162: "Make the doors upon a 
woman's wit, and it will out at the casement." Patience in the 
next line is a trisyllable. 

95. And about evening, etc. Marshall points the line thus: 
" And, about evening, come yourself, alone," — to show that Bal- 
thazar speaks " quietly and gravely, to impress upon Antipholus 
counsels of moderation, and to dissuade him from hasty action ;" 
but this ought to be evident to any intelligent actor or reader. 

98. Passage. "Going to and fro of people" (Schmidt). Cf. 
0th. v. I. 37: "What, ho! no watch? no passage?" 



Scene II] Notes 145 

99. Vulgar. Public, general. 

100. Supposed. " Founded on supposition, made by conjec- 
ture" (Johnson). 

loi. Ungalled. Cf. Ham. iii. 2. 283 : — 

" Why, let the strucken deer go weep, 
The hart ungalled play." 
Ungalled estimation here = unblemished reputation. 

104. Sticcession. A quadrisyllable. See on ii. 2. 136 above. 
The folios have hotis'd in the next line, making possession also a 
quadrisyllable, for the sake of the rhyme. Lives upon succession — 
"holds its ground securely, like an heir who has come into his 
property" (Herford). 

107. Mirth. Warburton explains the passage thus : " I will be 
merry even out of spite to mirth, which is now of all things the 
most unpleasing to me." Heath says : " Though mirth hath with- 
drawn herself from me, and seems determined to avoid me, yet, in 
despite of her, and whether she will or not, I mean to be merry." 
Schmidt's explanation is : "I will defy mirth itself to keep pace 
with me ; I will outjest mirth itself." No one of these interpreta- 
tions is quite satisfactory, but that of Warburton is perhaps the 
nearest so. I doubt whether Antipholus really means anything 
more than that he will be merry out of spite, though he does not 
feel like it, or despises it ; and thus he is merry in despite of mirth. 
Cf. Much Ado, i. i. 237: "Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in 
the despite of beauty ; " that is, in despising or hating beauty. 

115. Porpentine. Porcupine; the only name for the animal in 
S. Cf. Ham. i. 5. 20 : " Like quills upon the fretful porpentine." 
There, as here, the editors generally substitute " porcupine." Cf. 
Ascham, Toxophilus : " nature gave example of shootinge first by 
the porpentine," etc. 

121. Hour. A dissyllable ; as often in S. 

Scene II. — 3. Love-springs. That is, the shoots or buds of 
love ; the metaphor being that of a plant, not springs of water. 
COMEDY OF ERRORS — lO 



14-6 Notes [Act III 

Cf. V. and A. 656 : " The canker that eats up love's tender spring ;" 
and R. of L. 950 : " To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs." 
4. Building . . . ruinous. For the figure, cf. T. G. of V, v. 
4. 9: — 

" O thou, that dost inhabit in my breast, 
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless, 
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall ; " 

T. and C. iv. 2. 109: "the strong base and building of my love;" 
and Somt. 119. 12: — 

" And ruin'd love, when it is built anew, 
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater." 

II. Become disloyalty. "Render disloyalty becoming by some 
show of loyalty" (Clarke). 

15. What. Equivalent to why, as often with need. 

16. Attaint. Disgrace. Cf. T. and C. i. 2. 26: "There is no 
man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an 
attaint but he carries some stain of it." 

18. At board. At table. The omission of the article after 
prepositions is not uncommon. Sometimes it may be " absorbed " 
in the preposition. 

19. Shame hath a bastard fame, well jnanaged. Shame, if well 
managed, gets a spurious reputation — a respectability not legiti- 
mately its own. 

22. Compact of credit. Made up of credulity. Cf. V, and A. 
149 : " Love is a spirit all compact of fire ; " A. Y. L, ii. 7. 5 : 
" If he, compact of jars, grow musical ; " M. N. D. v. I. 8: "of 
imagination all compact," etc. 

27. Vain. "Light of tongue, not veracious" (Johnson). 

30. Hit of. Hit on, guess at. Cf. M. W. iii. 2. 24 : "I can 
never hit on 's name," 

34. Conceit. Conception, comprehension ; as ofteno Cf. R. of 
L. 701 : — 



Scene II] Notes 147 

" O, deeper sin than bottomless conceit 
Can comprehend in still imagination ? " 

See also iv. 2. 65 below. 

36. Folded. Wrapped up, concealed. Qi. R. of L. \o*]y. "Nor 
fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses." See also Id. 675. 

43. Nor . . . no. For the double negative, cf. iv. 2. 7 below: 
"First, he denied you had in him no right," etc. 

44. Decline. Apparently = incline. Dyce aptly quotes Greene, 
Penelope^ s Web, 1601 : "That the loue of a father, as it was royall, 
so it ought to be impartiall, neither declining to the one nor to the 
other, but as deeds doe merite." Malone explained it " fall off, or 
decline from her to you ; " but he has just denied any tie or 
attachment to Adriana. Marshall remarks that '■^decline is more 
forcible than incline, as it implies the act of turning away from 
his supposed wife to her sister." 

45. Train. Draw, entice ; as in Z. Z. Z. i. i. 71 : — 

" These be the stops that hinder study quite, 
And train our intellects to vain delight." 

Mermaid ■= siren (see 47 just below) ; the only sense in which 
S. uses the word. Cf. V. and A. 429 : " Thy mermaid's voice hath 
done me double wrong ; " Id. 777 : " Bewitching like the wanton 
mermaid's song ; " R. of L. 141 1 : "As if some mermaid did their 
ears entice," etc. See also 165 below. Halliwell-Phillipps cites 
Bartholomceus de Prop. Reru7n, 1535: "The mermayden hyghte 
sirena is a see beaste wonderly shape, and draweth shypmen to 
peryll by swetenes of songe." 

48. Hairs. For the plural, cf. M. of V. iii. 2. 120 : — 

" here in her hairs 
The painter plays the spider," etc. 

We find golden hairs again in V. and A. 51. Cf. Z. Z. Z. iv. 3. 
142 : " her hairs were gold," etc. 

49. Bed. The reading of the 2d folio ; the 1st has " bud," which 
Steevens thought possibly right ; but bed is generally adopted. 



148 Notes [Act III 

52. Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink! The line has 
troubled some of the critics. Love (that is, Venus) is assumed to 
be light ; as in V. and A. 149 : — 

" Love is a spirit, all compact of fire, 
Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire ; " 

and the line, as I understand it, is simply an emphatic, though 
indirect, way of saying that she is in no danger of sinking : Let 
her be drowned if she sink, but being light, she cannot sink. For 
Love = Venus, or love personified, Malone compares the passage 
just quoted from V. and A. and A. and C i. i. 44 : "Now, for the 
love of Love, and her soft hours." See also J?, and J. ii. 5. 7 : 
" Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw Love " (cf. Temp. iv. 
I. 94 and V. and A. 1 190) ; Z. L. L. iv. 3. 380 : "Forerun fair 
Love, strewing her ways with flowers," etc. Possibly there is a 
sportive play on light (= wanton), as in M. ofV. v. i. 129 : — 

" Let me give light, but let me not be light, 
For a light wife doth make a heavy husband." 

See also Ld. ii. 6. 42, iii. 2. 91, Z. Z. Z. v. 2. 26, etc. 

54. Mated. Confused, bewildered ; with a play upon the idea 
of being mated, or given as a mate to Adriana, though he does 
not know how. Cf. v. i. 282 below. See also Macb. v. i. 86 > 
" My mind she has mated, and amaz'd my sight." 

58. Wink. Shut the eyes ; as often. Cf. Sonn. 43. i : — 

" When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see : 
For all the day they view things unrespected ; 
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee 
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed ; " 

Temp. ii. i. 216 : — 

" Thou let'st thy fortune sleep — die, rather ; wink'st \ 

Whiles thou art waking," etc. 

64. My sole earth^s heaven, etc. "All the happiness that I wish; 
on earth, and all that I claim from heaven hereafter " (Malone) . 



Scene II] Notes 149 

66. Aim. The folios have " am." Ahn is Capell's emendation, 
and is almost unanimously adopted by the editors, though no other 
example of this transitive use (= aim at) occurs in S. Steevens 
cites Orlando Furioso, 1594 : — 

" like Cassius, 
Sits sadly dumping, aiming Caesar's death ; " 

and Drayton, Robert Duke of Normandy : " I make my changes 
aim one certain end." Marshall retains " am," assuming that the 
meaning may be " I am (inseparable from) thee." He compares 
what Antipholus says in 61. 

78. Besides. For the prepositional use, cf. T. N. iv. 2. 92 : 
" Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits ? " 

92. Sir-reverence. A corruption of " save reverence " {salva 
reverentid)^ used as an apology for referring to any thing unseemly. 
Giff ord quotes an old tract on the origin of tobacco : " The time 
hath been, when, if we did speak of this loathsome stuff, tobacco, 
we used to put a ' sir-reverence ' before ; but we forget our good 
manners." Halliwell-Phillipps quotes Taylor, the Water-Poet, 
Workes, 1630 : — 

" There *s nothing vile that can be done or spoke, 
But must be covered with Sir Reverence cloake." 

loi. Week. It is barely possible that there is a play on wick, 
which was pronounced like week. Halliwell-Phillipps quotes Cot- 
grave, Wifs Interpreter : — 

" Here lies a tallow-chandler, I need not tell it, 
If your nose be not stopt, you may easily smell it , 
Then, gentle reader, herein learn you may. 
He that made many weeks, cann't make one day." 

103. Swart. Swarthy, dark. Cf. K.John, iii. 1. 46 and 2 Hen. VI. 
i. 2. 84. We have " swart-complexion'd " in Sonn. 28. 1 1. 

104. For why. The foHo points " for why ? " but the combina- 
tion is here, as in sundry other places, practically = because, or, as 



150 Notes [Act m 

Abbott puts it (^Grammar, 75), "wherefore ? (because). " I have 
no doubt that this usage grew directly out of the ordinary inter- 
rogative one. Abbott compares the similar change in the Latin 
quid enim ? 

107. In grain. Ingrained, fast-dyed. Cf. T. N. i. 5. 255 : 
"'T is in grain, sir; 't will endure wind and weather." 

122. Reverted. Turned back. Schmidt thinks there may be a 
play upon the sense of " fallen to another proprietor." S. uses the 
word only here and in Ham. iv. 7. 23 : "my arrows . . . would 
have reverted to my bow again." 

In making war against her heir, there is a play on heir and hair^ 
with an allusion to the war against Henry of Navarre, the heir of 
Henry III of France. " Mistress Nell's brazen forehead seemed to 
push back her rough and rebellious hair, as France resisted the 
claim of the Protestant heir to the throne " (Clarke). Cf. p. 9 
above. For the pun, cf. Davies, Scourge of Folly : — 

" Yet talks he but of heads and heires apparant, 
Though his owne head has not one haire apparant." 

Heir was formerly pronounced like hair. 

125. The chalky cliffs. Those on the southern coast of England. 
Cf. 2 Hen, VI. iii. 2. loi : — 

" As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs, 
When from thy shore the tempest beat us back," etc. 

130. Hot in her breath. Malone is doubtful whether this is an 
allusion to " the fiery threats which Spain had recently used towards 
England when she sent out her Invincible Armada," or merely to 
the heat of her climate. The latter seems more probable, though 
the former is possible. 

132. America. Of course the anachronism is very palpable, 
whatever may have been the intended epoch of the play ; but it 
was enough for S. that his audience would understand the allusion. 
The word Ainerica occurs nowhere else in S. 



Scene II] Notes 151 

136. Armadoes of caracks. Fleets of large ships. For armado, 
cf. K. John, iii. 4. 2 : "A whole armado of convicted sail; " and 
for carack, 0th. i. 2. 50 : " he to-night hath boarded a land carack." 
See also Beaumont and Fletcher, Coxcomb: "They're made like 
caracks, all for strength and stowage ; " Florio : " Caracca, a kinde 
of great ship, in Spaine called a carricke ; " and Elyot, Did. : 
" Bucentaurus, a great shyppe or carrike." 

Ballast. Ballasted, or loaded. It would appear to be a con- 
tracted form, like heat {K.John, iv. i. 61), etc.; but Malone may 
be right in deriving it from the obsolete balace or balass. So hoist 
may be from hoise {Ham. iii. 4. 207), and graft is certainly from 
graff (cf. A. Y. L. iii. 2. 124), though Abbott {Grammar, 342) 
gives both among contracted participles. Halliwell-Phillipps cites 
Greene, Orlando Furioso, 1594 : " and sent them home, ballast with 
little wealth ; " and Taylor the Water-Poet, Workes : " well rigg'd 
and ballac'd both with beere and wine." We find " disbalased " 
(= unloaded) in 'Nash^s Have with You., etc.; and "unballaced" 
in Hall's Satires and Powell's Love's Leprosie, 1598. 

137. Belgia. Cf. 3 Hen. VI. iv. 8. i : "Edward from Belgia," 
etc. 

139. Low. For the play on Low Countries, cf. Ar Ghee's jests 
(quoted by Halliwell-Phillipps) : " Two Dutchmen, the one very 
tall, and the other of exceeding low stature, walking together in 
the street, a pleasant gentleman, seeing them, said to his friend, — 
See, yonder goe together High Germany and the Low Countries," 

140. Diviner. Sorcerer. " Dromio, like his master, thinks he 
has got among witches ; women capable of working spells, and 
transforming him to a turnspit dog" (Clarke). 

141. Assured. Affianced; as in K. John, ii. i. 535 : "when I 
was first assur'd." 

144. That. So that; as in v. i. 140 below, and often. 

146. Faith. " Alluding to the superstition of the common peo- 
ple, that nothing could resist a witch's power of transforming men 
into animals but a great share oi faith : however, the Oxford editor 



152 Notes [Act III 

[Hanmer] thinks a breast oi flint better security; and he there- 
fore puts it in" (Warburton). 

147. Czirtal. Having a docked tail. Cf. M. W. ii. i. 114: 
" Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs " (such a dog being consid- 
ered unfit for the chase). 

Turn z' the wheel alludes of course to the use of dogs as turn- 
spits. Halliwell-Phillipps devotes three pages of his folio ed. to 
the illustration of this subject. Machines or jacks for turning the 
spit, moved by weights like a clock, had been invented in the time 
of S. We find them mentioned as early as 1585 in the Nomenclator 
of Adrianus Junius : " automatarius faber^ a maker of devises and 
motions that goe and turne of themselves, as clocks, jacks to turne 
spits," etc. In the preface to the folio of 1623, we read : "Cen- 
sure will not driue a Trade, or make the lacke go." In Brome's 
Antipodes, 1640, mention is made of a project "for putting downe 
the infinite use of jacks, whereby the education of young children, 
in turning spits, is greatly hindered." Dogs were early used for 
this purpose. Topsell, in his Hist, of Four-Footed Beasts, 1607, 
says : "There is comprehended, under the curres of the coursest 
kinde, a certaine dogge in kitchen service excellent ; for when any 
meat is to be roasted, they go into a wheel, which they turning 
round about with the waight of their bodies, so diligently looke to 
their businesse, that no drudge nor scullion can do the feate more 
cunningly." 

148. Presently. Immediately ; as in iv. i. 32 and v. i. 31 below. 
Koad= port, haven ; as in M. of V. i. i. 9, v. i. 288, etc. 

164. To self-wrong. Cf. W. T. iv. 4. 549 : — 

" But as the unthought-on accident is guilty 
To what we wildly do ; " 

Dekker, Guls Hornbooke : " by being guilty to their abbominable 
shaving ; " and Birch, Reign of Elizabeth : " and am not guilty to 
myself of any bad dealing in this information." 

165. Mermaid's song. See on 45 above. 



Scene I] Notes 153 

171. What please. What may please. 

181. Vain. Foolish, silly ; as in 2 Hen. IV. v. 5, 48, etc. 

182. So fair an offer' d chain. For the transposition of the arti- 
cle, cf. K. John, iv. 2. 27 : " So new a fashion'd robe ; " Temp. iv. 
I. 123 : "So rare a wonder'd father," etc. 



ACT IV 



Scene i. — 2. Importun'd. See on i. i. 126 above, and cf. 53 
below. 

4. Guilders. See on i. i. 8 above. 

5. Satisfaction. Metrically five syllables. See on ii. 2. 136 and 
149 above. 

6. Attach. Arrest ; as in 73 and iv. 4. 6 below. It was a legal 
term. 

8. Growing. Accruing, becoming due. Cf. iv. 4. 119, 132 
below. 

12. Pleaseth you. If it please you. Cf. 2 Hen. IV. iv. i. 225, 
iv. 2. 52, Hen. V. v. 2. 78, etc. 

16. Bestow. Employ, use. Cf. T. and C ii. 2. 159: "Whose 
life were ill bestow'd," etc. 

21. / buy a thousand pound a year! On the face of it, there 
seems to be nothing in this but an exclamation of surprise at being 
sent to buy so strange a thing ; but, as Clarke remarks, " there may 
have been some point of allusion obvious at the time when the 
play was first acted, though now lost." He adds that perhaps 
Dromio " means to hint that in purchasing a rope's end he may be 
providing for himself a heavy revenue of future thwacks ; " but this 
is very doubtful. Possibly Halliwell-Phillipps is right in taking 
it to mean "a rope worth a thousand a year for your purpose." 
He compares 3 Hen. VI. ii. 2. 144: — 

"A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns, 
To make this shameless callet know herself," 



154 Notes [Act IV 

It has also been suggested that the connecting link in the slave's 
mind between a rope's end and a thousand pound a year is in 
"the abihty of each for payment in its quibbling sense of pun- 
ishnientr Cf. iv. 4. 10 below. For pound as a plural (used only 
with numbers), cf. Rich. II. ii. 2. 91, etc. S. also uses pounds 
with numbers; as in M. W. i. i. 52, i. 3. 8, Hen. V. i. I. 19, 
etc. 

22. Holp. The form of the past tense regularly used by S. ex- 
cept in Rich. III. v. 3. 167 and 0th. ii. i. 138, where we find 
helped. As the participle it occurs ten times, helped Qnly four times. 
We find holpen in Psalms, Ixxxiii. 8, Daniel, xi. 34, Luke, i. 54, etc. 
It is said that holp up is still provincial, especially in an ironical 
sense, as here. 

25. Belike. It is likely, probably ; as in iv. 3. 91 below. 

28. Carat. Spelt "charect" in the ist folio (misprinted "Rac- 
cat " in the later folios), and " charract" in 2 Hen. IV. iv. 5. 162, 
the only other instance of the word in S. 

29. Chargeful. Expensive ; used by S. only here. The same 
is true of debted (= indebted) in 31. 

32. Discharg'd. Paid. For its application to the creditor, cf. 
iv. 4. 117 below. See also M. of V. iii. 2. 276: "The present 
money to discharge the Jew," etc. In 13 above it is used in the 
modern way. 

39. I will, etc. ^^ I will, instead of I shall, is a Scotticism, says 
Douce (an Englishman); it is an Irishism, says Reed (a Scots- 
man); and an ancient Anglicism, says Malone (an Irishman)" 
(Knight). 

46. Stays for. Cf. i. 2. 76 and iii. 2. 185 above. 

53. Importunes. See on 2 above. 

56. Send me by some token. The reading of the folios, retained 
by most of the editors. The form appears to have been an idiom 
of the time, used in cases like this as well as in those which some 
of the editors confound with it ; as, for instance, the following 
from Marston, Dutch Courtesan, iii. i : — 



Scene I] Notes 155 

" Mrs. Mulligrub. By what token are you sent ? —by no token ? Nay, 

I have wit. 
Cockledemoy . He sent me by the same token that he was dry shaved 

this morning." 

57. You run this humour out of breath. A proverbial expres- 
sion. John Day wrote a comedy under the title of Humour out of 
Breath, which was printed in 1609. 

60. Whether. Printed " wh'er " in the early eds., as in some 
ten other instances ; but it is often monosyllabic when printed 
whether {M. N. D. iii. i. 156, iii. 2. 81, M. of V. v. i. 302, Ham. 
ii. 2. 17, etc.). 

62. What should I, etc. The later folios substitute " why " for 
what. The latter is often equivalent to the former ; as in 2 Hen. 

IV. i. 2. 129: "What tell you me of it?" etc. See also on iii. 2. 
15 above. In the present passage, however, what has its ordinary 
sense. 

68. Stands upon. Concerns ; as in Lear, v. i. 69: — 

" for my state 
Stands on me to defend, not to debate." 

We often find such inversions as " it stands me now upon " {Ham. 

V. 2. 63), "it stands your grace upon" (^Rich. II. ii. 3, 138), "it 
only stands our lives upon " (^A. and C. ii. i. 50), etc. 

73. Attach. See on 6 above. 

78. Apparently. Evidently. This is the only instance of the 
adverb in S., but apparently often = evident, obvious. 

81. Buy this sport as dear. Cf. M. N. D. iii. 2. 426: "Thou 
shalt buy this dear," etc. The expression is not to be confounded 
with that in M. N. D. iii. 2. 175 : "Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it 
dear." 

85. From the bay. This is the reading of the stage-direction 
in the folio. Cf. 99 below. 

87. Fraughtage. Freight, cargo ; used again in T. and C, 
prol. 13 : — 



156 Notes [Act IV 

" And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge 
Their warhke fraughtage." 

For fraught in the same sense, see T. N. v. i. 64 ; and for the 
verb, Temp. i. 2. 13, M. of V. ii. 8. 30, etc. Freight does not 
occur in S. 

89. Balsa?ntim. Used by S. only here, as balsam only in T. of 
A. iii. 5. no. 

90. In her trim. Cf. 7>;///. v. i . 236 ; — 

" When we in all her trim freshly beheld 
Our royal, good, and gallant ship." 

93. Peevish. Foolish, silly ; the only sense that Schmidt recog*| 
nizes in S. Cf. iv. 4. 115 below. For the play upon ship anc 
sheep, cf. T. G. ^/ F. i. i. 73 : — 

" Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already, 
And I have play'd the sheep in losing him ; " 

and L. L. L. ii. i. 219 : — 

" Maria. Two hot sheeps, marry. 
Boyet. And wherefore not ships ? " 

The words are still pronounced alike in Warwickshire and some 
other parts of England. Dyce quotes Dekker, Satiromastix, 1602: 
" this shipskin cap shall be put off." Dryden rhymes ship and 
deep in ^neid, i. 64 : — 

" With whirlwinds from beneath she toss'd the ship, 
And bare expos'd the bosom of the deep." 

95. Waftage. Passage ; as in T. and C. iii. 2. Ii : — 

" Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks, 
Staying for waftage." 

Hire is here a dissyllable ; as in Hen. VIII. ii. 3. 36, A. and C. 
V. I. 21 J etc. Cf. hour in iii. i. 121 above. 

loi. List me. Elsewhere " list to me ; " as in T. of S. ii. i. 365, 



Scene II] Notes 157 

W. T. iv. 4. 552, etc. List is often transitive, however, with the 
thing heard as object ; as in ^^^. F. i. i. 43: " List his discourse." 

no. Dowsabel. Her name, as we have learned, is Nell (iii. 2. 
no above), and the poetic Dowsabel (the Fr. dotue et belief, a 
favourite name in pastoral poetry, is applied to her ironically. 
Malone quotes The London Prodigal : " as pretty a Dowsabell as 
we should chance to see in a summer's day." Clarke sees " a fleer 
at the assault she made upon him; to dowse, in old English parlance, 
signifying to give a blow on the face, to strike; " but this is too 
far-fetched. 

Scene II. — 2. Mightst thou perceive austerely, etc. Could you 
see by the serious expression of his eye that he was in earnest? 

6. His hearfs meteors, etc. " Alluding to those meteors in the sky 
[the aurora borealis~\ which have the appearance of lines of armies 
meeting in the shock" (Warburton). Cf. i Hen. IV. i. i. 10: — 

"Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, 
All of one nature, of one substance bred, 
Did lately meet in the intestine shock 
And furious close of civil butchery." 

Steevens quotes Milton, P. L. ii. 533: — 

" As when, to warn proud cities, war appears 
Wag'd in the troubled sky, and armies rush 
To battle in the clouds, before each van 
Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears. 
Till thickest legions close ; with feats of arms 
From either end of heaven the welkin burns." 

7. Denied. Followed by a negative ; as in Rich. III. i. 3. 90 : 
" You may deny that you were not the cause," etc. In like man- 
ner, it is followed by but ; as in Much Ado, i. 3. 33, A. IV. v. 3. 
166, Cor. iv. 5. 243, etc. 

8. Spite. Vexation, mortification. Cf. ii. 2. 194 above. 

16. Speak him fair ? That is, say anything to encourage his 
suit. Cf. M. N. D.'ii. I. 199 : — 



158 Notes [Act IV 

" Do I entice you ? do I speak you fair ? 
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth 
Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you ? " 

See also iv. 4. 155 below. 

1 7. Nor I will not. Cf. the " double negative " in 7 and iii. 2. 
43 above, and in the passage just quoted from M, N, D. 

18. His. Its. See on ii. i. 17 above, 

19. Sere. "That is, dry, withered" (Johnson), Steevens and 
Malone take the trouble to add examples of the word, which would 
seem to have been less familiar in their day than now. Shake- 
speare's "the sere [or sear'\, the yellow leaf" {^Macb. v. 5. 23), 
which has become one of the most familiar of quotations, may pos- 
sibly account for this. That, by the way, is the only other instance 
of the adjective in S, Schmidt strangely makes it a noun, but the 
dictionaries do not recognize it as ever so used. The sere in Ham. 
ii. 2. 337 (" tickle o' the sere ") is a wholly different word. 

20. Shapeless. Unshapely, misshapen. So sightless = unsightly 
{K.John, iii. i. 45), 2Si6. featureless = ugly {Softn. ii. 10). 

22. Stigmatical in making. " That is, marked or stigmatized by 
nature with deformity, as a token of his vicious disposition " (John- 
son) . S. uses the word only here ; but cf. the noun stigmatic in 
3 Hen. VI. ii. 2. 136 : — 

" like a foul, misshapen stigmatic, 
Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided." 

See also 2 Hen. F7. v. i. 215. 

25, Ah, but I think him better than I say. There is a good deal 
of human nature ■ — or woman nature — in this. 

27. Far fro7Ji her nest the lapwing cries away. This trick of the 
bird to divert attention from its nest had become proverbial. 
Steevens and other editors give many examples of it from contem- 
poraneous writers ; as from Greene, Second Part of Coney-catching^ 
1592: "But again to our priggers, who, as before I said — cry with 



i 



Scene II] Notes 159 

the lapwing farthest from her nest, and from their place of residence 
where their most abode is," etc. See also M.for M. i. 4. 32: — 

" though 't is my familiar sin 
With maids to play the lapwing and to jest, 
Tongue far from heart," etc. 

29. Sweet now. This, like good now (cf. iv. 4. 22 below), was a 
common phrase of appeal or supplication, not necessarily implying 
any special familiarity. Cf. Te^np. iv. i. 124: "Sweet now, si- 
lence ! " Sweet did much conventional service in the Elizabethan 
age, as dear does now. 

32. Tartar. Tartarus ; as in T.N. ii. 5. 225 : "To the gates of 
Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit ? " zxv^ Hen. F. ii. 2, 123: 
"vasty Tartar." On Limbo (still used as a cant term for a 
prison), cf. Hen. VIII. v. 4. 67. For its original sense (= hell, or 
a place on the borders of hell), see A. W. v. 3. 261. 

33. An everlasting garment. A play upon the durability of the 
sergeant's buff (leather made from buffalo skin). Cf. iv. 3. 25 be- 
low: "gives them suits of durance; " and i Hen. IV. i. 2. 49: 
" Is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance? " 

35. Fairy. The folios all have " Fairie." Theobald took this 
to be a misprint for " Fury," which most editors since have 
adopted. But as White notes, " all fairies were not supposed to be 
like Oberon and Titania or their attendants ; there were fairies 
pitiless and roughH^ He might have added that we have distinct 
reference to these malignant fairies in more than one passage in 
S. Cf. Ham. i. i. 163: "No fairy takes" (that is, bewitches 
or blasts) ; and Cymb. ii. 2. 9 : — 

" To your protection I commend me, gods ! 
From fairies and the tempters of the night 
Guard me, beseech ye." 

Perhaps we should add ii. 2. 194 above. 

37. Back-friend. So called here " because he comes from be- 



i6o Notes [Act IV 

hind to arrest one" (Schmidt), as shoulder-clapper also implies. 
Cf. A. Y. L. iv. r. 48 : " Cupid hath clapp'd him o' the shoulder ; " 

and Cymb. v. 3. 78 : — 

" fight will I no more, 
But yield me to the veriest hind that shall 
Once touch my shoulder." 

Back-friend, aside from the quibble, is = secret enemy. Halliwell- 
Phillipps cites Florio, 1598: ^^ Inimico, an enimie, a foe, an ad- 
versarie, a back-friend." Hall, in his Henry VII., speaks of 
" adversaries and backe friends." 

Countermands = stops one in going through ; used by S. only 
here and in E. of L. 276, where it is = contradict, oppose. 

39. Runs counter. That is, follows the scent backward instead 
of forward. Cf. 2 Hen. IV. i. 2. 102: "you hunt counter ; " and 
Ham. iv. 5. no: "O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!" 
There is a play on counter, there being two prisons in London 
called the Counter. 

Draws dry foot = traces the scent of the game. For draw as a 
hunting term (— trace, track), cf. I Hen. IV. iii. 3. 129; "a drawn 
fox." Nares quotes Gent. Recr. : " When we beat the bushes, etc. 
after the fox, we call it drawing." The origin of dry foot is doubt- 
ful. Johnson thought that to draiv dry-foot meant to trace the 
marks of the dry foot without scent ; but others are doubtless cor- 
rect in making it refer to hunting by scent. Schmidt suggests that 
it was " perhaps so called because, according to sportsmen, in water 
the scent is lost." Dry foot hunting is often mentioned in the old 
writers ; as in The Dumb Knight, 1633 (quoted by Steevens) : "I 
care not for dry-foot hunting ; " and The Miser, 1672: "Thou art 
like a dry-foot-dog, that (out of a whole heard of deer) singles out 
one, whose scent he only followes, and tires himself to catch that." 

40. Before the judgment, etc. There is a play on arresting a 
man before judgment, *' that is, on what is called mesne process " 
(Malone) ; and also on hell, which, as Steevens tells us, was *' the 
cant term for an obscure dungeon " in a prison. He cites The 



Scene III] Notes l6l 

Counter-Rat, 1658: "In Wood-street's hole, or Poultry's hell." 
There was likewise a place so called under the Exchequer Cham- 
ber, where the king's debtors were confined. Halliwell-Phillipps 
quotes The Merry Discourse of Meum and Tumn, 1639 : "a little 
darke roome . . . hard by Hell, neare to the upper end of West- 
minster Hall." Cf. the use of Li??ibo above. 

42. On the case. "An action upon the case is a general action 
for the redress of a wrong done any man without force, and not 
especially provided for by law" (Grey). Perhaps we should omit 
the apostrophe in '' rested. Palsgrave has " I reste, as a sergente 
dothe a prisoner, or his goodes,7> arrested 

46. Mistress, redemption. There is no comma after mistress in 
the early eds., and the 4th folio prints " Mistris Redemption," 
which Rowe follows, apparently supposing that Dromio means to 
call Luciana " Mistress Redemption." The Cambridge editors re- 
mark that the comma is often omitted after vocatives in the old 
editions ; as in iv. 3. 76 and iv. 4. 42 below. 

49. Band. Bond; as in Rich. II. i. i. 2 : "according to thy 
oath and band." The play on the word in Dromio's reply is 
repeated in a different form in iv. 3. 29 below. 

57. Fondly. Foolishly. See on ii. I. 116 above. 

58. Season. Opportunity. Schmidt paraphrases the sentence 
thus : " Time is seldom so convenient and opportune as one would 
wish." 

65. Conceit. Conception, imagination. See on iii. 2. 34 above. 

Scene HI. — 5. Some other. Cf. V. and A. 1102: — 

"That some would sing, some other in their bills 
Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries," 

So a// other (Sonn. 62. 8), etc. 

7. In. Into ; as in ii. 2. 34 above. 

II. Lapland sorcerers. Lapland was supposed to abound in 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — II 



1 62 Notes [Act IV 

sorcerers and witches. This is Shakespeare's only allusion to the 
region. Cf. Milton's one reference to it in P. L. ii. 665 : — 

" Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, call'd 
In secret, riding through the air she comes, 
Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance 
With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon 
Eclipses at their charms." 

13. Have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparelled ? The 
picture of old Adam is the sergeant, there being a play upon his 
buff and the slang use of the word as applied to the bare skin. 
What is meant by getting him new-apparelled is not so clear ; but, 
perhaps, as Singer suggests, the idea is " got him a new suit, in 
other words, got rid oi him." 

18. He that came behind you. See on iv. 2. 37 above. 

24. Bob. That is, a rap, or a clap on the shoulder. Cf. A. V. L. 

ii-7-55 : — 

" He that a fool doth very wisely hit 
Doth very foolishly, although he smart, 
But to seem senseless of the bob ; " 

that is, seem insensible of the stroke. The folio has " sob " (with 
long j) and some editors read "fob," which is not readily explicable 
here. 

25. Suits of durance. See on iv. 2. 33 above. That durance 
(cf. the modern lasting) was the name of a very durable fabric is 
evident from various passages cited by Nares and Steevens ; as, for 
instance, Three Ladies of London : " the taylor that out of seven 
yards stole one and a half of durance." 

26. Sets Mp his rest. Makes up his mind, is fully resolved ; a 
phrase taken from gaming. See M. ofV. ii. 2. no, R. and J. iv. 5. 
6, etc. 

Mace. The club carried by a bailiff or sergeant as a badge of 
authority. Cf. J. C. iv. 3. 268 : " O murderous slumber, layest 
thou thy leaden mace upon my boy ? " The morris-pike was a 



Scene III] 



Notes 



163 



formidable weapon, supposed to be of Moorish origin, whence its 
name (Douce) ; mentioned by S. only here. 

39. Hoy. A small vessel, usually sloop-rigged ; a word more 
familiar in England than in this country. S. uses it only here. 

Angels. The angel was an English gold coin, worth about ten 
shillings. It had on one side a figure of Michael piercing the 
dragon, whence its name. The device is said to have originated in 
Pope Gregory's pun on Angli and Angeli, and it gave rise to a good 
many puns. See M. W. i. 3. 60, Much Ado, ii. 3. 35, M. of V. ii. 
7. 56, and 2 Hen. IV, i. 2. 187. 




Golden Angel of Queen Elizabeth 



41. Distract. Distracted. Cf. /. C. iv. 3. 155 : "she fell dis- 
tract," etc. 

42. Illusions. A quadrisyllable. See on ii. 2. 136 above. 

47. Avoid! Avaunt! Away! Cf. Temp, iv I. 142: "Well 
done ! avoid ! no more ! " See also 66 below. 

50. The deviVs dam. This mythical personage is mentioned 
several times in S. See M. /^r. i. i. 151, iv. 5. 108, T. of S. i. i. 106, 
iii. 2. 158, K.fohn, ii. i. 128, etc. 

51. light. Wanton ; a word much played upon by S. See on 
iii. 2. 52 above. 

53. As much as to say. The early eds. omit the second as, which 
was supplied by Pope. We find the expression in Much Ado. ii, 3. 



164 Notes [Act IV 

270 and 2 Hen. IV. ii. 2. 142 ; and as much to say as in T. N. i. 
5. 62. The old reading may possibly be an idiom of the time, but 
no other example of it has been pointed out. 

59. We '// mend our dinner here. " That is, by purchasing 
something additional in the adjoining market" (Malone); or, 
better, "a proposal that the dinner, which had been marred by 
Angelo's failing in his appointment with Antipholus at the Por- 
cupine, shall now be tjiended by a supper" (Clarke). Cf. 66 just 
below. 

62. And bespeak a long spoon. Alluding to the familiar proverb 
about the need of a long spoon in feeding with the devil. Cf. 
Temp. ii. 2. 103 : " This is a devil, and no monster. I will leave 
him ; I have no long spoon." 

68. Conjure. Accented by S. on either syllable, without refer- 
ence to the meaning. 

73. A drop of blood. Steevens compares Middleton's Witch, 
where a spirit descends and Hecate exclaims : — 

" There 's one come downe to fetch his dues, 
A kisse, a coll, a sip of blood," etc. 

According to the old superstition, some little token of affiance was 
always required in compacts made with the devil. 

81. Fly pride, says the peacock. "A proverbial phrase, by which 
Dromio rebukes the woman, whom he thinks a cheat, for accusing 
his master of cheating" (Clarke). 

'^■^. Demean. Conduct, behave ; the original and correct sense 
of the word (cf. demeanour) and the only one in S. Cf. v. i. %% 
below. 

86. Both one and other. For the omission of the article, cf. 
T. and C. prol. 21 : "On one and other side, Trojan and Greek," 
etc. 

88. histance. Indication. See on i. i. 64 above. 

91. Belike. It is likely. vSee on iv. i. 25 above. 

95. Perforce. By force ; as in v. i . 1 1 7 below. 



Scene IV] Notes 1 65 

Scene IV. — 6. Attached. Arrested ; as in iv. i. 6 above. 

22. Good now. Good, with or without the now, is sometimes 
used vocatively in S. (= good friend, good fellow, etc.), as here. 
Hudson says : " S. has good now repeatedly with the exact mean- 
ing of well nowT That explanation will not fit some instances of 
the expression ; as W. T.y. \. \<^ : — 

" Now, good now, 
Say so but seldom. 

Cleomenes. Not at all, good lady," etc. 

Here the good now seems as clearly a vocative as the good lady 
that follows. Cf. Temp. i. 3. 16, 20, T. and C. iii. i. 122, A. and 
C. i. 2. 25, etc. 

28. Sensible. For the sense played upon, cf. Cor. i. 3. 95 : "I 
would your cambric were sensible as your finger," etc. 

31. My long ears. " He means that his master had lengthened 
his ears by frequently pulling them " (Steevens). 

39. Wont. Is wont to bear. Cf. P. P. 273 : *' My curtal dog, 
that wont to have play'd." See also i Hen. VI. i. 2. 14 and i. 4. 
10. In all these passages it is the past tense of the obsolete won 
or wone (= dwell). The participle worit (not yet wholly gone out 
of use) is more common in S. Cf. ii. 2. 158 above. We find the 
present of won in Milton, P. L. vii. 457 : — 

" As from his lair the wild beast, where he wons 
In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den." 

Cf. Spenser, VirgiVs Gnat : — 

" Of Poets Prince, whether he woon beside 
Faire Xanthus sprincled with Chimseras blood, 
Or in the woods of Astery abide." 

The same writer has the past tense in its old literal sense in Colin 
Clouts Come Home Againe, 774 : — 

" I weened sure he was our God alone. 
And only woon'd in fields and forests here." 



1 66 Notes [Act IV 

42. Enter . . . PiNCH. The ist folio reads " a schoolemaster, 
calPd Pinch." Steevens remarks that in many country villages in 
his day the pedagogue was still a reputed conjurer. Cf. Jonson, 
Staple of News : " I would have ne'er a cunning school-master 
in England, I mean a cunning man as a school-master ; that is, a 
conjurer," etc. Learning and witchcraft were naturally associated 
in the popular mind. Latin was the language of exorcisms. Cf. 
Ham. i. i. 42: "Thou art a scholar ; speak to it, Horatio" (that 
is, to the ghost), and Much Ado, ii. i. 264 : " I would to God some 
scholar would conjure her ! " See also Beaumont and Fletcher, 
Night Walker, ii. i : — 

" Let 's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin, 
And that will daunt the devil." 

In like manner the honest butler in Addison's Drummer recom- 
mends the steward to speak Latin to the ghost. 

Respice finei7i. There seems to be here, as Warburton notes, an 
allusion to a pamphlet by Buchanan against the lord of Lidding- 
ton, which ends with the words Respice finem, respice fune^n. 

43. Like the parrot. Warburton remarks : *' This alludes to 
people's teaching that bird unlucky words ; with which, when any 
passenger M^as offended, it was the standing joke of the wise 
owner to say. Take heed, sir, my parrot prophesies. To this Butler 
[in Hudibras'] hints, where, speaking of Ralpho's skill in augury, 

he says : — 

' Could tell what subtlest parrots mean, 
That speak, and think contrary clean ; 
What member 't is of whom they talk, 
When they cry rope, and walk, knave, walk.' " 

These particular phrases must have been commonly taught to 
parrots, for Halliwell-Phillipps cites many references to them. 
In Lyly's Midas, for instance, one of the characters says of the 
bird, " for every houre she will cry, walke, knave, walke ; " and 
another replies, " Then will I mutter, a rope for parrat, a rope." 
Cf. Taylor the Water-Poet, Workes : — 



Scene IV] Notes 1 67 

" Why doth the parrat cry, a rope, a rope ? 
Because he 's caged in prison out of hope. 
****** 
Since I so idly heard the parrat talke, 
In his owne language I say, Walke, knave, walke." 

The Cambridge editors conjecture that we should read : — 

" or, rather, ' prospice finem,' beware the rope's end. 
Antipholus of E. Wilt thou still talk like the parrot ? " 

50. Please you. " Give you as a gratuity " (Clarke). Cf. the 
use oi gratify in M. of V. iv. i. 406 and T. of S. i. 2. 273. 

52. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy ! Those who were be- 
witched or possessed by an evil spirit were supposed to show it by 
trembling. Cf. Temp. ii. 2. %2,: "Thou dost me yet but little 
hurt ; thou wilt anon, I know it by thy trembling ; now Prosper 
works upon thee." For ecstasy — xaz.^\\.Q.%%y cf. Ham. iii. i. 168: 
"Blasted with ecstasy." See also Id. ii. i. 102, iii. 4. 74, 138, etc. 

61. Customers ? " Contemptuously =: visitors, guests "(Schmidt). 
For its use = harlot, see A. W. v. 3. 287 and 0th. iv. i. 123. 
Malone says : " Here it seems to signify one who visits such 
women." 

62. Companion. Used contemptuously, as we now use fellow, 
Cf. M. W. iii. I. 23, 2 Hen. IV. ii. 4. 102, 132,/. C. iv. 3. 138, etc. 

72. Perdy. A corruption of /ar Z?z>z^ Cf. ^^;/. F. ii. i. 52, etc. 

74. Sans. Much used in the time of S., and apparently viewed 
as an English word, being used in French and Italian dictionaries 
to define sans and senza. 

76. Certes. Certainly ; nearly obsolete in the time of S., who 
uses it only five times. It is a pet archaism with Spenser. Kitchen- 
vestal; " her charge being," says good Dr. Johnson, " like that of 
the vestal virgins, to keep the fire burning." 

80. Soothe. Humour; as the answer shows. Cf. Lear, Hi. 4. 1S2 : 
" Good my lord, soothe him ; let him take the fellow," etc. 



1 68 Notes [Act IV 

93. Is. The singular verb is common with two singular sub- 
jects. 

94. Deadly. Deathly, deathlike. CL V.and A.io/^^'. "a deadly 
groan ;" T. N. i. 5. 284 : " such a deadly life," etc. 

95. Bound and laid in some dark room. Cf. v. I. 248 below. 
This was the common treatment of the insane in the time of S. 
Cf. A. V. L. iii. 2. 421 : " Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, 
deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do." 

96. Lock me forth. Cf. the use oi forth in ii. 2. 215 above. 

109. Ay me. The folio reading, for which some editors sub- 
stitute "Ah me!" The latter occurs only in R. and J. v. i. 10 
(perhaps by accident), while the former is found some thirty times 
in the early eds. Cf. Milton, Lycidas, 56, 154, Comus, 511, P.L. iv. 
86, X. 813, etc. See also v. i. 186 below. 

115. Peevish. Foolish. See on iv. i. 93 above. 

117. Do . . . displeasure. Cf. v. I. 142 below. 

120. Discharge. Pay. See on iv. i. 32 above. 

122. The debt grows. See on iv. 1.8 above, and cf. 136 below. 

125. Ujthappy. "Here used in one of the senses of unlucky^ 
that is, mischievous" (Steevens). Cf. the Latin infelix, the Fr. 
malheureux, and the German unselig. 

126. Bond. There is an obvious play upon the word. 

139. Whenas. When ; as in V. and A. 999, Sonn. 49. 3, 
3 Hen. VI. i. 2. 75, ii. i. 46, v. 7. 34, etc. It is printed as two 
words in the folio. 

146. God, for thy mercy ! Cf. Rich. II. ii. 2. 98 : " God, for his 
mercy ! " etc. 

152. Stuff. "An old word for baggage or luggage. It was 
formerly used with the same widely comprehensive meaning for 
goods and chattels generally, as women nowadays use the word 
things, or as the Italians use their word roba " (Clarke). The word 
is still current in New England in this sense. Cf. Genesis, xxxi. 37, 
xlv. 20, I Samuel, x. 22, xxv. 13, etc. 

153. Long. Not often used with a subordinate clause; but 



Scene I] Notes 169 

cf. 3 Hen, VI. iii. 3. 254 : " I long till Edward fall by war's mis- 
chance." 

155. Speak us fair. See on iv. 2. 16 above, and cf. iii. 2. 11. 



ACT V 

Scene I. — 8. His word might bear my wealth. I would risk 
all that I am worth on his word, or honesty. For bear (= carry 
off, win), cf. T. of A. i. i. 131 : — 

" His honesty rewards him in itself ; 
It must not bear my daughter." 

10. That self chain. Cf. M. of V. i. i. 148 : "that self way ; » 
Hen. r. i. I. I : "that self bill," etc. 

11. Forswore . . . to have. That is, swore that he did not have. 
16. Circumstance. Detail. Cf. K.John, ii. i. 77 : — 

" The interruption of their churlish drums 
Cuts off more circumstance." 

25. Heard me to deny. For the to after heard, cf. 2 Hen. VI. ii. 
I. 94: "Myself have heard a voice to call him so." Cf. 283 and 
394 below, and see on ii. i. 26 above. 

26. These ears, etc. To fill out the measure, Pope gave 
"knowest ; " but hear is probably a dissyllable. Cf. hire in iv. i. 
95 above, and sour in 45 below. 

30. / '// prove mine honour, etc. The duello was regarded as 
an appeal to Providence, and its issue as determining the side of 
honour. 

31. Presently. At once, immediately ; as very often, ^o present 
is often = instant, immediate. 

34. Get zvithin hi?n. Close with him, grapple with him. 

36. Take a house. That is, take refuge in a house. 

37. This is some priory. This has been criticised as an anach- 
ronism; but see p. 187 below. 



lyo Notes [Act v 

45. Sour. Spelt " sower " in the folios to indicate the dissyllabic 
pronunciation. See on 26 above. 

46. Much different. The 2d folio repeats much for the sake of 
the measure ; but the rhythm may be satisfied by what is called 
the " hovering accent " on different. It is not absolutely necessary 
to accent the second syllable, as some have suggested. 

49. Wrack of sea. Destruction wrought at sea. Wrack is uni- 
formly so spelt in the early eds., and the pronunciation is shown by 
the rhymes, alack in Per. iv. prol. 12, and back in V. and A. 558, 
R. of L. 841, 965, Sotm. 126. 5, and Macb. v. 5. 51. Cf. shipwrack'd 
in i. I. 114 above. 

51. Strayed. Caused to stray; the only instance of the transi- 
tive use in S. 

62. Copy. Probably = " theme," as Steevens explains it. Qarke 
(who, as former quotations will show, is fond of tracing double 
meanings in a word or phrase) suggests that it is = " copious sub- 
ject," combining the sense of the Latin copia, abundance, with that 
of theme, or subject. Schmidt thinks it may be = " a law to be 
followed, a rule to be observed." Conference = conversation ; the 
usual meaning in S. 

66. Glanced it. Hinted it ; not elsewhere used transitively by S. 

69. Venom. For the adjective use, cf. Rich. III. i. 3. 291 : 
" venom tooth." 

70. Poisons. Changed by Pope to " poison ; " but the construc- 
tion, however we may explain it, is very common in the folio. It 
is sometimes necessary to the rhyme ; as in V. and A. 11 28, Sonn. 
41. 3, Macb. ii. i. 61, Ha77t. iii. 2. 214, etc. 

71. Sleeps. For the plural, cf. Ham. iv. 7. 30 : " Break not your 
sleeps for that," etc. Malone quotes Sidney, Arcadia : " My 
sleeps were inquired after, and my wakings never unsaluted." 

74. Digestions. A quadrisyllable. See on ii. 2. 136 above. 

79. But moody, etc. An incomplete line, which editors have 
filled out in sundry ways. 

80. Kinsman. Simply = " akin," which Hanmer substituted. 



Scene I] Notes 171 

Capell changed it to " kins-woman," putting the "kins-" at the end 
of 79 ; but, as Steevens remarks, this is inadmissible in English 
verse, unless it be of the comic kind. He compares the Homer 

Travesty: — 

" On this Agam- 
memnon began to curse and damn." 

For the change of gender in her heels, Ritson compares M. of V. 

iii. 2. 169 : — 

" but now I was the lord 
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants, 
Queen o'er myself." 

82. Distemperatures. Distempers. Cf. i Hen. IV. iii. i. 34 : 
"Our grandam earth, having this distemperature," etc. 

84. Would mad. Cf. iv. 4. 128 above. S. does not use madden. 

86. Have. The reading of the 2d folio. The ist has " Hath," 
which may be what S. wrote. Cf. Doth (often changed to Do) in 
R. and J. prol. 8 and in Cor. iii. 3. 99, etc. 

92. In. Into. See on ii. 2. 34 above, and cf. 143 below. 

94. Neither. Cf. 302 below. See also T. G. of V. iii. i. 196, v. 
2. ZZ^ etc. 

100. Attorney. Agent, substitute. Cf. A. K Z. iv. 1.94: "die 
by attorney," etc. 

105. Formal. Normal ; here = rational. Cf. A. and C. ii. 5. 
41 : — 

" Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes, 
Not like a formal man ; " 

where it means an ordinary man as opposed to a supernatural 
being. See also T. N. ii. 5. 128, where " any formal capacity" = 
any ordinary intellect. Similarly, informal, in the only instance of 
the word in S. {M. for M. v. i. 236) = out of one's senses. 

106. Parcel. Part; as in Cor. iv. 5. 231 : "a parcel of their 
feast," etc. 

117. Perforce. See on iv. 3. 95 above. 

121. Sorry. Sorrowful; as often. Cf. J/<2r<5. ii. 2. 21 : "This is 



172 Notes [Act V 

a sorry sight." As Steevens remarks, sorry had a stronger mean- 
ing in Shakespeare's time than at present. Cf. Chaucer, C. T, 
1 1 743 (Tyrwhitt, 7283) : "the tormentz of this sory place" (that 
is, hell), etc. 

124. Reverend. Here the ist and 2d folios have "reverent," 
but " reverend " in 134 below. The two forms are used indiscrimi- 
nately in the early eds. 

137. Who. The reading of ist folio, for which the 2d (followed 
by most modern editors) has "whom." Cf. Macb. iii. i. 123 : 
" Who I myself struck down ; " Cor. ii. I. 8 : " Who does the wolf 
love ?" etc. We find wJio sometimes even after prepositions; as 
"To who ?" (^Oih. i. 2. 52, Cynib. iv. 2. 75) ; " With who ?" {^Oth. 
iv. 2. 99); "for who" {Macb. iv. 3. 171), etc. 

138. Important. Importunate ; as in Much Ado, ii. i. 174 : "If 
the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in every 
thing." See also A. IV. iii. 7. 21. In Lear, iv. 4, 26, the quartos 
have " important," the folios " importun'd." So importance ~ 
importunity, in T. N.y. I. 371 and IC. John, ii. I. 7. 

140. That. So that ; as often. Cf. iii. 2. 144 above. 

142. Doing displeasure. Cf. iv. 4. 1 17 above. 

143. In. Into ; as in 92 above. 

144. Jewels. See on ii. I. 109 above. 

146. Take order. Take measures ; as very often. Cf. Rich. II. 
V. I. 53, 0th. V. 2. 72, etc. 

148. Wot. Know ; used only in the present tense and parti- 
ciple. For the latter, see W. T. iii. 2. 77 : " wotting no more than 
I." Strong escape — escape effected by strength, or violence. 

153. Raising of. Cf. A. V. L. ii. 4. 44 : "searching of thy 
wound ; " Id. iv. 3. 10 : " as she was writing of it," etc. 

169. Are both broke loose, etc. Malone notes that though, accord- 
ing to the usage of the time, are broke loose was correct enough, are 
beaten the maids would not be admissible. He was right, how- 
ever, in considering it one of the " confusions of construction " so 
common in S. 



Scene I] Notes 173 

170. A-row. In a row, one after another. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. v. 
12. 29 : "all her teeth arew." Steevens quotes Chaucer, C. T. 
1 1 296 (Tyrwhitt, 6836) : " A thousand tyme arewe he gan hire 
kisse ; " and Turbervile, Penelope to Ulysses : " The Trojan tentes 
arowe." Douce adds from Hormanni Vulgaria : " I shall tell 
thee arowe all that I sawe : Ordine tibi visa omnia exponam." 

171. Whose beard they have sing'd, etc. It has been conjectured 
that S. may have got the hint of this from North's Plutarch, where, 
in the Life of Dion, it is stated that " Dionysius was so fearful and 
mistrustful of everybody that he would suffer no man with a pair 
of barber's scissors to poll the hair of his head, but caused an 
image-maker of earth to come unto him, and with a hot burning 
coal to burn his goodly bush of hair round about." 

174. To him. Omitted by Capell ; but the line is one of the 
occasional Alexandrines in the play. Cf. 208 below. 

175. Nicks him like a fool. Malone notes that professional fools 
were shaved and had their hair nicked or notched in a particular 
manner. He cites The Choice of Change, 1598, in which it is said 
of monks that "they are shaven and notched on the head, like 
fooles." 

183. Scorch. Changed by Warburton to "scotch" (= hack or 
cut), which seems to have been another form of the word. It 
occurs again in Macb. iii. 2. 13 (in the folio). But here scorch 
may be used in its familiar sense. Singeing the doctor's beard 
may have suggested scorching his wife's face. The word does not 
necessarily imply anything more than burning the skin. 

192. Bestrid thee. That is, to defend thee when fallen. Cf. 
I Hen. IV. V. i. 122 : "Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, 
and bestride me, so ; 't is a point of friendship." The past tense 
and participle are both bestrid in S. 

199. Abused. Deceived, been false to ; as often. 

203. Discover. Disclose, explain. Cf. R. and J. ii. 2. 106, iii. 
I. 147, etc. 

205. Harlots. Base or lewd fellows. The word was applied to 



1 74 Notes [Act V 

men as well as women. Cf. W. T. ii. 3. 4 ; " the harlot king," 
etc. 

208. So befall my soul, etc. The expression is peculiar, but the 
meaning is clear enough. 

210. On night. That is, "o' nights" (7*. N. i. 3. 5), or 
"a-night" (^. Y. Z. ii. 4. 48). The interchange of on, of, and 
the prefix a- is common in S. 

214. I am advised, etc. "That is, I am not going to speak 
precipitately or rashly, but on reflection and consideration" 
(Steevens). Cf. M. of V. i. i. 142: "with more advised watch ; " 

Rich. III. ii. I. 107: — 

" who, in my wrath, 
Kneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advis'd," etc. 

217. Albeit. Several times interchanged with although in the 
early eds. In M. of V. i. 3. 62, the folios have albeit, the ist quarto 
although; in I Hen. IV. i. 3. 128 the folios have although, the 
quartos albeit ; and in Rich. III. iv. 3. 6 the folios have albeit, the 
quartos although. 

219. Pack'd. Leagued, in conspiracy; as in Much Ado, v. i. 308 : 
" Who, I believe, was pack'd in all this wrong." Cf. the uo\ys\ pack 
in M. W. iv. 2. 123: "there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy 
against me," etc. Schmidt gives /«<ri that sense in iv. 4. 103 above. 

229. God he knows. Cf. Rich. III. iii. I. 10: "On what occa- 
sion, God he knows, not I," etc. 

231. My peasant. Cf. ii. i. 81 above. 

233. Fairly I bespoke. Cf. T. N.v. i. 192: " But I bespake you 
fair, and hurt you not." See also iv. 2. 16 and iv. 4. 155 above. 

239. Anatomy. Skeleton. In K. John, iii. 4. 40, Death is 
called " that fell anatomy." For its use = body, cf. T. N. iii. 2. 
67 and R. and J. iii. 3. 106. 

242. Living dead juan. Usually printed " living-dead man ; " 
but it is as well without the hyphen, which is not in the folios. 

243. Took on him as a conjurer. Pretended to be a conjurer. 
Cf. 2 Hen. IV. iv. i. 60: "I take not on me here as a physician." 



Scene I] Notes 175 

According to Minsheu, " the difference betweene conjuration and 
witchcraft is that the conjurer seemeth by praiers and invocations 
of God's powerfull names, to compell the devill to say or doe what 
he commandeth ; the witch dealeth rather by a friendlie and vol- 
untarie conference or agreement betweene him or her and the 
devill or familiar, to have his or her turne served in lieu or stead 
of bloud, or other gift offered unto him, especially of his or her 
soule." 

245. With no face, etc. Cf. the play upon half-faced in K. 
fohn, i. I. 94. 

248. Dankish. Damp ; used by S. only here. Dank he has 
five times. Cf. M. N. D. ii. 2. 75, R. and J. ii. 3. 6, etc. 

250. In sunder. The reading of the 1st folio. The phrase was 
apparently going out of use, as the 2d folio substitutes asunder. In 
Rich. III. iv. I. 34, the quartos have in sunder, the folios asunder. 
The only other instance of in sunder in S. is in R. of L. 2^^^. 

253. Satisfaction. Metrically five syllables ; as in 400 below 
and iv. i. 5 above. 

269. And this is false, etc. Nearly a repetition (and doubtless 
unintentional) of 209 above. 

270. Impeach. Impeachment, accusation. The noun occurs 
again in 3 Hen. VI. i. 4. 60 : " no impeach of valour." 

271. Have drunk of Circe's cup. Have become as irrational as 
beasts. The only other allusion to Circe in S. (perhaps not his) is 
in I Hen. VI. v. 3. 35. 

273. Coldly. Coolly, calmly. Cf. R. and f. iii. i. 55 : — 

" Either withdraw into some private place, 
Or reason coldly of your grievances." 

276. With her there. With that woman there (explained by a 
gesture) ; referring to the Courtesan. 

282. Mated. See on iii. 2. 54 above. 

283. Vouchsafe me speak. We find the to inserted in 394 below. 
Cf. 25 above. 



176 Notes [Actv 

291. Unbound. Dromio plays on the word, as on bound m 306 
below. 

. 299. Careful. Full of care, anxious. Cf. Rich. II. ii. 2. 75 : 
" O, full of careful business are his looks ! " 

Deformed = deforming. This active use of passive participles is 
common in S. Cf. disdained = disdainful in I Hen. IV. i. 3. 183, 
grim-look'' d va. M. N. D. v. I. I'ji, etc. We still use well-behaved. 

300. Defeatures. See on ii. I. 98 above. Cf. also the use of 
defeat — disfigure, in 0th. i. 3. 346. Halliwell-Phillipps quotes 
Florio : " Disfare, to undoe, to spoile, to waste, to marre, to un- 
make, to defeate." 

302. Neither. See on 94 above. 

309. Splitted. See on i. i. 103 above. 

311. My feeble key of zmtun'd cares. " The weak and discordant 
tone of my voice, that is changed by grief" (Douce). 

312. Grained. "That is, furrowed, like the grain of wood" 
(Steevens). Cf. Cor. iv. 5. 114: "My grained ash," etc. 

317. A little use to hear. Still some hearing left, some use of 
my ears. 

321. Syracusa, boy. There is no comma in the folios, which led 
Rowe to read "Syracusa bay" and Hanmer "Syracusa's bay." 

323. Sham'' St. For the intransitive use, cf. A. Y. I. iv. 3. 136: 
" I do not shame to tell you what I was," etc. 

333. Genius. Attendant spirit. Cf. A. and C. ii. 3. 19:- 



" Thy demon, that 's thy spirit which keeps thee, is 
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable, 
Where Caesar's is not ; but near him thy angel 
Becomes a fear, as being overpower'd ; " 

and Macb. iii. i. 56: — 

" There is none but he 
Whose being I do fear ; and under him 
My Genius is rebuk'd as it is saia 
Mark Antony's was by Caesar." 



I 



Scene I] Notes 177 

335. Deciphers. Distinguishes. Cf. M. W. v. 2. 10 : " the 
white will decipher her well enough." 

357-362. Why, here begins . . . met together. In the folio these 
lines follow 346. The re-arrangement is due to Capell and is 
adopted by all the editors. His morning story refers to that which 
he has told the Duke in i. i. 

358. Antipholuses. The folio has " Antipholus," which was, 
however, intended as a plural. For similar contractions of plurals 
and possessives ending in a sibilant, see p. 113 above. 

359. Semblance. A trisyllable, like children in 361. See 
p. 113 above. 

360. Her urging of her wrack. Some change her in both places 
to " his ; " but the Duke may refer to what Emilia has just said. 

362. Which. Who ; as often. 

379. I think it be. Cf. Ham. i. i. 108: "I think it be no other 
but even so," etc. The subjunctive be is often used after verbs of 
thinking, etc., and sometimes expresses more doubt than is. 

389. Errors all arose. The folios have " are arose," which the 
Cambridge ed. retains. If it be what S. wrote it is = have arose, 
or arisen ; but it is more likely a misprint, to be corrected as in the 
text. "Are" is an easy misprint for all. "Moreover," as Clarke 
remarks, " all here is quite in Shakespeare's style, and is his way 
of drawing attention to the many errors that have occurred and 
given the play its name." 

391. It shall not need. Cf. 3 Hen. VI. i. 4. 125: "It needs 
not ; " and Milton, F. I. iii. 340 : " For regal sceptre then no 
more shall need." 

398. Sympathized. Mutually shared or suffered. For other 
peculiar uses of the word, see R. of L. 1113, Sonn. 82. 11, and 
R. of L. iii. I. 52. 

400. Satisfaction. Metrically five syllables. See on 253 above. 

401. Thirty-three years. The folio reading, changed by Theo- 
bald to "twenty-five " and by Capell to " twenty-three." The mod- 
ern editors generally follow Theobald, who got his " twenty-five " 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 12 



lyS Notes [Act v 

by putting together what ^Egeon has said of his son's leaving him at 
the age of "eighteen" (i. i. 125) and of the "seven short years" 
(310 above) since he saw him. Capell's " twenty-three " is derived 
from i. I. 125 and i. i. 132. But, as the Cambridge editors (who 
retain the folio reading) remark, the Duke says (327 above) that he 
has been patron to Antipholus for "twenty years," and either three 
or five seems too early an age to assign for the beginning of the 
patronage. Moreover, Antipholus saved the Duke's life in the wars 
"long since" (161, 191 above) ; and his "long experience" of his 
wife's "wisdom" and her "years" are mentioned in iii. i. 88, 89. 
I am inclined to think it is only one of several instances of the 
poet's carelessness in these little arithmetical matters. 

405. The calendars. That is, the two Dromios. Cf. i. 2. 41 
above. 

406. A gossips' feast. That is, a sponsors' feast. Gossip in this 
sense is both masculine and feminine. Cf. W. T. ii. 3. 41 and 
Hen. VIII. V. 5. 13. 

Go with me. Various changes have been made here on account 
of the repetition of go ; but, as Clarke remarks, ^^ go with me is the 
burden of the Abbess's speech throughout." The Cambridge edi- 
tors conjecture, " So to a gossips' feast all go with me." 

407. Such nativity ! Some editors change nativity to " felicity," 
and others to "festivity;" but Clarke well says: "There is some- 
thing in the repetition of nativity which harmonizes with Emilia's 
dwelling on the fact that this present hour is the birth-hour 
of her sons. Such reiterations in speeches at the close of a play 
are not unfrequent with S., who often, as it appears to us, gives 
this kind of confusedly repeated construction, partly to indicate 
the tumult of feeling in the speaker, partly to impress upon the 
audience any special point towards which he desires to draw their 
attention." 

408. Gossip. Make merry. Cf. K. John, v. 2. 59 : — 

" at feasts, 
Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping." 



Scene I] Notes 179 

411. Lay at host in. That is, were put up at. Cf. i. 2. 9 above, 
416. Kitchen' d me. Entertained me in the kitchen; the only 
instance of the verb in S. 

418. My glass. My reflection in a mirror. In T. N. v. i. 272 
f " If this be so, as yet the glass seems true ") the metaphor simi- 
larly refers to a case of mistaken identity. 

419. Sweet-fac' d. Cf. M. N. D. i. 2. 88: " Pyramus is a sweet- 
fac'd man." 

423. Draw cuts. Draw lots ; the only instance of the phrase 
in S. " Draw lots " occurs only in A. and C. ii. 3. 35 and ii. 6. 62 
{^Per. i. 4. 46 is not Shakespeare's). 



APPENDIX 

Meres's Mention of the Play 

The passages in Meres's Palladis Tamia (1598) referring to 
Shakespeare read as follows : — 

" As the Greeke tongue is made famous and eloquent by Homer, 
Hesiod, Euripedes, Aeschihis, Sophocles, Findarus, Phocylides and 
Aristophanes ; and the Latine tongue by Virgill, Quid, Horace, 
Silius Italicus, Lucanus, Lucretius, Ausonius and Claudianus : so 
the English tongue is mightily enriched, and gorgeouslie inuested 
in rare ornaments and resplendent abiliments by sir Philip Sidney, 
Spencer, Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlow and 
Chapma^t. 

" As the soule of Euphorhus was thought to liue in Pythagoras : 
so the sweete wittie soule of Oziid Hues in mellifluous & hony- 
tongued Shakespeare, witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, 
his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends, &c. 

" As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and 
Tragedy among the Latines : so Shakespeare among y^ English is 
the most excellent in both kinds for the stage ; for Comedy, wit- 
nes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Loue labors lost, 
his Loue labours ivonne, his Midswnmers night drea^ne, and his 
Merchant of Venice : for Tragedy his Richard the 2. Richard the 
3. Henry the 4. King Lohn, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and 
Luliet. 

"As Epius Stolo said, that the Muses would speake with Plautus 
tongue, if they would speak Latin : so I say that the Muses would 
speak with Shakespeares fine filed phrase, if they would speake 
English. 

181 



1 82 Appendix 

"And as Horace saith of his: Exegi monumentum cere peren- 
nius ; Regaliq ; situ pyramidutn altius ; Quod non imber edax ; 
Non Aquilo impotens possit diruere ; aut innu?uerabilis anno- 
rum series ^ fuga temporum : so say I seuerally of sir Philip 
Sidneys, Spencers, Daniels, Draytons, Shakespeares, and Warners 
Workes ; . . . 

"As Pindarus, Anacreon and Callimachus among the Greekes; 
and Horace and Catullus among the Latines are the best Lyrick 
Poets ; so in this faculty the best among our Poets are Spencer 
(who excelleth in all kinds), Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, 
Bretton. . . . 

"As these Tragicke Poets flourished in Greece, Aeschylus, 
Euripedes, Sophocles, Alexander Aetolus, Achceus Erithriceus, Asty- 
damas Atheniensis, Apollodorus Tarsensis, Nicomachus Phrygius, 
Thespis Atticus, and Timon Apolloniates ; and these among the 
Latines, Accius, M. Attilius, Pomponius Secundus and Seneca: 
so these are our best for Tragedie, the Lorde Buckhurst, Doctor 
Leg of Cambridge, Doctor Edes of Oxforde, maister Edward Fer- 
ris, the Authour of the Mirrour for Magistrates, Marlow, Peele, 
Watson, Kid, Shakespeare, Drayton, Chapjnan, Decker, and 
Beniamin lohnson.^^ 



Plautus and Shakespeare 

The original argument of the Mencechmi is thus translated by 
Warner (see p. i8 above): — 

" Two twinborn sons, a Sicill merchant had, 
Menechmus one, and Sosicles the other: 
The first his father lost a little lad. 
The grandsire named the latter like his brother. 
This (grown a man) long travel took to seek 
His brother, and to Epidamnum came, 
Where th' other dwelt enrich'd, and him so Uke, 
That citizens there take him for the same : 



\ 



Appendix 1 83 

Father, wife, neighbours, each mistaking either, 
Much pleasant error, ere they meet together." 

Knight, after quoting it, remarks: "This argument is almost suffi- 
cient to point out the difference between the plots of Plautus and 
of Shakspere. It stands in the place of the beautiful narrative of 
^geon, in the first scene of the Comedy of Errors. In Plautus we 
have no broken-hearted father bereft of both his sons; he is dead, 
and the grandfather changes the name of the one child who re- 
mains to him. Shakspere does not stop to tell us how the twin- 
brothers bear the same name ; nor does he explain the matter any 
more in the case of the Dromios, whose introduction upon the 
scene is his own creation. In Plautus, the brother, Menaechmus 
Sosicies, who remained with the grandsire, comes to Epidamnum, 
in search of his twin-brother who was stolen, and he is accom- 
panied by his servant Messenio ; but all the perplexities that are 
so naturally occasioned by the confusion of the two twin-servants 
are entirely wanting. The mistakes are carried on by the ' mere- 
trix, uxor, et socer ' (softened by Warner into * father, wife, neigh- 
bours '). We have *Medicus,' the prototype of Doctor Pinch; 
but the mother of the twins is not found in Plautus. We scarcely 
need say that the Parasite and the Father-in-law have no place in 
Shakspere's comedy. The scene in the Comedy of Errors is 
changed from Epidamnum to Ephesus ; but we have mention of 
Epidamnum once or twice in the play. 

"The Mencechmi opens with the favourite character of the 
Roman comedy — the Parasite ; the scene is at Epidamnum. The 
Parasite is going to dine with Mensechmus, who comes out from 
his house, upbraiding his jealous wife. But his wife is not jealous 
without provocation. . . . The Antipholus of Shakspere does not 
propose to dine with one * pretty and wild,' and to bestow ' the 
chain ' upon his hostess, till he has been provoked by having his 
own doors shut upon him. Our poet has thus preserved some 
sympathy for his Antipholus, which the Mensechmus of Plautus 
forfeits upon his first entrance. Menaechmus and the Parasite go 



1 84 Appendix " 

to dine with Erotium (meretrix). Those who talk of Shakspere's 
anachronisms have never pointed out to us what formidable liber- 
ties the translators of Shakspere's time did not scruple to take with 
their originals. Mensechmus gives very precise directions for his 
dinner, after the most approved Roman fashion : — 

' Jube igitur nobis tribus apud te prandium accurarier, 
Atque aliquid scitamentorum de foro obsonarier, 
Glandionidem suillam, laridum pernonidem, aut 
Sinciput, aut polimenta porcina, aut aliquid ad eum modum.' 
This passage Warner thus interprets : * Let a good dinner be made 
for us three. Hark ye, some oysters, a mary-bone pie or two, some 
artichokes, and potato roots ; let our other dishes be as you please.' 
In reading this bald attempt to transfuse the Roman luxuries into 
words accommodated to English ideas, we are forcibly reminded 
how ' rare Ben ' dealt with the spirit of antiquity in such matters 
(^Alchemistf ii. l) : — 

* The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels, 
Boil'd in the spirit of sol, and dissolv'd pearl, 
Apicius* diet, 'gainst the epilepsy : 
And I will eat these broths with spoons ofamber 
Headed with diamond and carbuncle. 
My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons, 
Knots, godwits, lampreys : I myself will have 
The beards of barbels serv'd, instead of sallads ; 
Oil'd mushrooms,' etc. 
" The second act in Plautus opens with the landing of Mensech- 
mus Sosicles and Messenio at Epidamnum. The following is 
Warner's translation of the scene : — 

' Menceckmus. Surely, Messenio, I think seafarers never take so com- 
fortable a joy in any thing as, when they have been long tost and tur- 
moiled in the wide seas, they hap at last to ken land. 

Messenio. I '11 be sworn, I should not be gladder to see a whole coun- 
try of mine own, than I have been at such a sight. But I pray, where- 
fore are we now come to Epidamnum ? must we needs go to see every 
town that we hear of ? 



Appendix 185 

Afenceckmus. Till I find my brother, all towns are alike to me: I 
must try in all places. 

Messenio. Why then, let 's even as long as we live seek your brother : 
six years now have we roamed about thus, Istria, Hispania, Massilia, 
Illyria, all the upper sea, all high Greece, all haven towns in Italy. I 
think if we had sought a needle all this time we must needs have found 
it, had it been above ground. It cannot be that he is alive ; and to seek 
a dead man thus among the living, what folly is it ? 

MencBch-imis . Yea, could I but once find any man that could certainly 
inform me of his death, I were satisfied; otherwise I can never desist 
seeking : little knowest thou, Messenio, how near my heart it goes. 

Messenio. This is washing of a blackamoor. Faith, let 's go home, 
unless ye mean we should write a story of our travail. 

MencBchmus . Sirrah, no more of these saucy speeches. I perceive I 
must teach you how to serve me, not to rule me. 

Messenio. Ay, so, now it appears what it is to be a servant. Well, I 
must speak my conscience. Do ye hear, sir ? Faith, I must tell you 
one thing, when I look into the lean estate of your purse, and consider 
advisedly of your decaying stock, I hold it very needful to be drawing 
homeward, lest in looking your brother, we quite lose ourselves. For 
this assure yourself, this town, Epidamnum, is a place of outrageous 
expenses, exceeding in all riot and lasciviousness : and (I hear) as full 
of ribalds, parasites, drunkards, catchpoles, coney-catchers, and syco- 
phants, as it can hold. Then for courtesans, why here 's the currentest 
stamp of them in the world. You must not think here to scape with as 
light cost as in other places. The very name shows the nature, no man 
comes hither sine danino. 

MencBchvzus. You say very well indeed : give me my purse into mine 
own keeping, because I will so be the safer, sine damno.' 

" Steevens considered that the description of Ephesus in the 
Comedy of Errors ('They say, this town is full of cozenage,' etc.) 
was derived from Warner's translation, where ' ribalds, parasites, 
drunkards, catchpoles, coney-catchers, sycophants, and courtesans,' 
are found ; the voluptarii, potatores, sycophanta, palpatores, and 
meretrices of Plautus. But surely the 'jugglers,' 'sorcerers,' 
' witches,' of Shakspere are not these. With his exquisite judg- 



1 86 Appendix 

ment, he gave Ephesus more characteristic * liberties of sin.' The 
cook of the courtesan, in Plautus, first mistakes the wandering 
brother for the profligate of Epidamnum. Erotium next encounters 
him, and with her he dines ; and, leaving her, takes charge of a 
cloak which the Mensechmus of Epidamnum had given her. In 
the Comedy of Errors the stranger brother dines with the wife of 
him of Ephesus. The Parasite next meets with the wanderer, and 
being enraged that the dinner is finished in his absence, resolves to 
disclose the infidelities of Mensechmus to his jealous wife. The 
'errors' proceed, in the maid of Erotium bringing him a chain 
which she says he had stolen from his wife : he is to cause it 
to be made heavier and of a newer fashion. The traveller goes his 
way with the cloak and the chain. The jealous wife and the Para- 
site lie in wait for the faithless husband, who the Parasite reports is 
carrying the cloak to the dyer's ; and they fall with their reproaches 
upon the Mensechmus of Epidamnum, who left the courtesan to 
attend to his business. A scene of violence ensues ; and the 
bewildered man repairs to Erotium for his dinner. He meets with 
reproaches only ; for he knows nothing of the cloak and the chain. 
The stranger Mensechmus, who has the cloak and chain, encounters 
the wife of his brother, and of course he utterly denies any know- 
ledge of her. Her father comes to her assistance, upon her hastily 
sending for him. He first reproaches his daughter for her sus- 
picions of her husband, and her shrewish temper : Luciana reasons 
in a somewhat similar way with Adriana, in the Comedy of Errors, 
and the Abbess is more earnest in her condemnation of the com- 
plaining wife. The scene in Plautus wants all the elevation that 
we find in Shakspere ; and the old man seems to think that the 
wife has little to grieve for, as long as she has food, clothes, and 
servants. Mensechmus, the traveller, of course cannot comprehend 
all this ; the father and daughter agree that he is mad and send 
for a doctor. He escapes from the discipline which is preparing 
for him ; and the doctor's assistants lay hold of Mensechmus, the 
citizen. He is rescued by Messenio, the servant of the traveller, 



Appendix 187 

who mistakes him for his master, and begs his freedom. The ser- 
vant going to his inn meets with his real master ; and, while dis- 
puting with him, the Mensechmus of Epidamnum joins them. Of 
course, the eclair cissenient is the natural consequence of the 
presence of both upon the same scene. The brothers resolve to 
leave Epidamnum together ; the citizen making proclamation that 
he will sell all his goods, and adding, with his accustomed loose 
notions of conjugal duty, *Venibit uxor quoque etiam, si quis emp- 
tor venerit.' 

" Hazlitt has said, ' This comedy is taken very much from the 
MencEchmi of Plautus, and is not an improvement on it.' We think 
he is wrong in both assertions." 



The Period of the Action 

I believe that Hazlitt, Clarke, and others are wrong in assum- 
ing that the action of the play is laid in the old classical times. 
Knight's remarks on this subject also are so good that I cannot 
forbear quoting them : — 

" We have noticed some of the anachronisms which the trans- 
lator of Plautus, in Shakspere's time, did not hesitate to introduce 
into his performance. Warner did not do this ignorantly ; for he 
was a learned person, and, we are told in an address of 'The 
Printer to his Readers,' had divers of this poet's comedies Eng- 
lished, for the use and delight of his private friends, who in Plautus' 
own words ' are not able to understand them.' There was, no doubt, 
a complete agreement as to the principle of such anachronisms in 
the writers of Shakspere's day. They employed the conventional 
ideas of their own time instead of those which properly belonged to 
the date of their story ; they translated images as well as words ; 
they were addressing uncritical readers and spectators, and they 
thought it necessary to make themselves intelligible by speaking 



1 88 Appendix 



of familiar instead of recondite things. Thus Warner not only 
gives us marybone pies and potatoes, instead of the complicated 
messes of the Roman sensualist, but he talks of constables and toll- 
gatherers, Bedlam fools, and claret. In Douce's Essay *0n the 
Anachronisms and some other Incongruities of Shakspere,' the 
offences of our poet in the Comedy of Errors are thus summed up : 
* In the ancient city of Ephesus we have ducats, marks, and guilders, 
and the Abbess of a Nunnery. Mention is also made of several 
modern European kingdoms, and of America ; of Henry the Fourth 
of France [iii. 2. 121], of Turkish tapestry, a rapier, and a striking- 
clock ; of Lapland sorcerers, Satan, and even of Adam and Noah. 
In one place Antipholus calls himself a Christian. As vi'e are 
unacquainted with the immediate source whence this play was 
derived, it is impossible to ascertain whether Shakspere is responsi- 
ble for these anachronisms.' The ducats, marks, guilders, tapestry, 
rapier, striking-clock, and Lapland sorcerers, belong precisely to 
the same class of anachronisms as those we have already exhibited 
from the pen of the translator of Plautus. Had Shakspere used 
the names of Grecian or Roman coins, his audience would not have 
understood him. Such matters have nothing whatever to do with 
the period of a dramatic action. But we think Douce was some- 
what hasty in proclaiming that the Abbess of a Ntmnery^ Satan, 
Adam and Noah, and Christian^ were anachronisms, in connection 
with the ' ancient city of Ephesus.' 

"Douce, seeing that the Comedy of Errors was suggested by the 
Mencechmi of Plautus, considers, no doubt, that Shakspere intended 
to place his action at the same period as the Roman play. It is 
manifest to us that he intended precisely the contrary. The 3fe- 
ncechmi contains invocations in great number to the ancient divin- 
ities; — Jupiter and Apollo are here familiar words. From the 
first line of the Comedy of Errors to the last we have not the slight- 
est allusion to the classical mythology. Was there not a time, then, 
even in the ancient city of Ephesus, when there might be an Abbess, 
— men might call themselves Christians, — and Satan, Adam, and 



Appendix 189 



Noah might be names of common use ? We do not mean to affirm 
that Shakspere intended to select the Ephesus of Christianity — the 
great city of churches and councils — for the dwelling-place of 
Antipholus, any more than we think that Duke Solinus was a real 
personage — that ' Duke Menaphon, his most renowned uncle,' ever 
had any existence — or that even his name could be found in any 
story more trustworthy than that of Greene's Arcadia. The truth 
is, that in the same way that A7'demies was a sort of terra incognita 
of chivalry, the poets of Shakspere's time had no hesitation in 
placing the fables of the romantic ages in classical localities, leav- 
ing the periods and the names perfectly undefined and unap- 
preciable. . . . 

" Warton has prettily said, speaking of Spenser, ' exactness in his 
poem would have been like the cornice which a painter introduced 
in the grotto of Calypso.' Those who would define every thing in 
poetry are the makers of corniced grottos. As we are not desirous 
of belonging to this somewhat obsolete fraternity, to which even 
Warton himself affected to belong when he wrote what is truly an 
apology for the Faerie Queene, we will leave our readers to de- 
cide whether Duke Solinus reigned at Ephesus before ' the great 
temple, after having risen with increasing splendour from seven 
repeated misfortunes, was finally burnt by the Goths in their third 
naval invasion ; ' ^ or whether he presided over the decaying city, 
somewhat nearer to the period when Justinian 'filled Constantinople 
with its statues, and raised his church of St. Sophia on its columns ; ' 
or, lastly, whether he approached the period of its final desolation, 
when the ' candlestick was removed out of its place,' and the Chris- 
tian Ephesus became the Mohammedan Aiasaluck. . . . 

" The exceeding beauty and accuracy of scenery and dress in our 
daj's are destructive, in some degree, to the poetical truth of Shak- 
spere's dramas. It takes them out of the region of the broad and 
universal, to impair their freedom and narrow their range by a typo- 

1 Gibbon, chap. x. 



190 Appendix 

graphical and chronological minuteness. When the word * Thebes ' 1 
was exhibited upon a painted board to Shakspere's audience, their 
thoughts of that city were in subjection to the descriptions of the 
poet ; but if a pencil as magical as that of Stanfield had shown 
them a Thebes that the child might believe to be a reality, the 
words to which they listened would have been comparatively unin- 
teresting, in the easier gratification of the senses instead of the 
intellect. Poetry must always have something of the vague and 
indistinct in its character. The exact has its own province. Let 
Science explore the wilds of Africa, and map out for us where there 
are mighty rivers and verdant plains in the places where the old 
geographers gave us pictures of lions and elephants to designate 
undiscovered desolation. But let Poetry still have its undefined 
countries ; let Arcadia remain unsurveyed ; let us not be too curi- 
ous to inquire whether Dromio was an ancient heathen or a Chris- 
tian, nor whether Bottom the weaver lived precisely at the time 
when Theseus did battle with the Centaurs." 



The Characters of the Twins 

The critics have given little attention to Shakespeare's skill in 
characterization as illustrated in this play, and least of all as shown 
in the two pairs of twins. Hazlitt remarks that, " in reading the 
play it is difficult, without a painful effort of attention, to keep these 
characters distinct in the minds ; " but, as with all his personages, 
Shakespeare has given them individual characteristics by which we 
can distinguish them. Some one has said that if his dramas were 

1 See Sidney's Defence of Poesy : " What child is there that, coming to 
a play, and seeing Thebes written in great letters upon an old door, doth 
believe that it is Thebes ? " This rude device was probably employed 
in the representation of the Thebais of Seneca translated by Newton, 
1581. 



Appendix 191 

printed without the names of the persons represented being attached 
to the speeches, we should know who is speaking by " his wonder- 
ful discrimination in assigning to every character appropriate modes 
of thought and expression." Knight, who, so far as I am aware, is 
the only editor or critic, who has illustrated this at any length in 
the case of the twin brothers in the present play, remarks : — 
" The Dromio of Syracuse is described by his master as 

'A trusty villain, sir; that very oft, 
When I am dull with care and melancholy, 
Lightens my humour with his merry jests.' 

But the wandering Antipholus herein describes himself; he is a 
prey to * care and melancholy.' He has a holy purpose to execute, 
which he has for years pursued without success : 

'He that commends me to mine own content 
Commends me to the thing I cannot get. 
I to the world am like a drop of water 
That in the ocean seeks another drop.' 

Sedate, gentle, loving, the Antipholus of Syracuse is one of Shak- 
spere'3 amiable creations. He beats his slave according to the 
custom of slave-beating ; but he laughs with him and is kind to him 
almost at the same moment. He is an enthusiast, for he falls in 
love with Luciana in the midst of his perplexities, and his lips utter 
some of the most exquisite poetry : 

' O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, 
To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears. 
Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote; 
Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs.' 

But he is accustomed to habits of self-command, and he resolves to 
tear himself away even from the siren : 

' But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong, 
I '11 stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.' 



192 Appendix 

As his perplexities increase, he ceases to be angry with his slave: 

' The fellow is distract and so am I, 
And here we wander in illusions : 
Some blessed power deliver us from hence ! ' 

Unlike the Mensechmus Sosicles of Plautus, he refuses to dine with 
the courtesan. He is firm yet courageous when assaulted by the 
Merchant. When the errors are clearing up, he modestly adverts 
to his love for Luciana ; and we feel that he will be happy. 

" Antipholus of Ephesus is decidedly inferior to his brother, in the 
quality of his intellect and the tone of his morals. He is scarcely 
justified in calling his wife 'shrewish.' Her fault is a too sensitive 
affection for him. Her feelings are most beautifully described in 
that address to her supposed husband : 

' Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine ; 
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, 
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, - 
Makes me with thy strength to communicate. 
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross. 
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss.' 

The classical image of the elm and the vine would have been suffi- 
cient to express the feelings of a fond and confiding woman ; the 
exquisite addition of the 'Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss,' con- 
veys the prevailing uneasiness of a loving and doubting wife. 
Antipholus of Ephesus has somewhat hard measure dealt to him 
throughout the progress of the errors ; but he deserves it. His 
doors are shut against him, it is true ; in his impatience he would 
force his way into his house, against the remonstrances of the good 

Balthazar : 

' Your long experience of her wisdom, 
Her sober virtue, years, and modesty. 
Plead on her part some cause to you unknown.' 

He departs, but not ' in patience ; ' he is content to dine from home, 
but not at * the Tiger.' His resolve — 



Appendix 193 

• That chain will I bestow — 
Be it for nothing but to spite my wife — 
Upon mine hostess ' — 

would not have been made by his brother, in a similar situation. 
He has spited his wife ; he has dined with the courtesan. But he 

is not satisfied : 

' Go thou 
And buy a rope's end ; that will I bestow 
Among my wife and her confederates." 

We pity him not when he is arrested, nor when he receives the 
rope's end instead of his ducats. His furious passion with his wife, 
and the foul names he bestows on her, are quite in character ; 
and when he has * Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor,' 
we cannot have a suspicion that the doctor was practising on the 
right patient. In a word, we cannot doubt that, although the 
Antipholus of Ephesus may be a brave soldier, who took ' deep 
scars ' to save his prince's life, and that he really has a right to con- 
sider himself much injured, he is strikingly opposed to the Antiph- 
olus of Syracuse ; that he is neither sedate, nor gentle, nor truly 
loving ; that he has no habits of self-command ; that his tempera- 
ment is sensual ; and that, although the riddle of his perplexity is 
solved, he will still find causes of unhappiness, and entertain 

' a huge infectious troop 
Of pale distemperatures.* 

"The characters of the two Dromios are not so distinctly marked 
in their points of difference, at the first aspect. They each have 
their ' merry jests ; ' they each bear a beating with wonderful good 
temper ; they each cling faithfully to their master's interests. But 
there is certainly a marked difference in the quality of their mirth. 
The Dromio of Ephesus is precise and antithetical, striving to utter 
his jests with infinite gravity and discretion, and approaching a pun 
with a sly solemnity that is prodigiously diverting : 

COMEDY OF ERRORS — 1 3 



94 Appendix 



Again : 



' The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit, 
The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell ; 
My mistress made it one upon my cheek. 
She is so hot because the meat is cold.' 

' I have some marks of yours upon my pate, 
Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders, 
But not a thousand marks between you both.' 



He is a formal humourist, and, we have no doubt, spoke with a 
drawling and monotonous accent, fit for his part in such a dialogue 
as this : 

' Antipholus of E. Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut out ? 
Droniio of E. Perdy, your doors were lock'd and you shut out. 
Antipholus of E. And did not she herself revile me there ? 
Dromio of E. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there. 
Antipholus of E. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn me ? 
Dromio of E. Certes, she did ; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you.' 

On the contrary, the * merry jests ' of Dromio of Syracuse all come 
from the outpouring of his gladsome heart. He is a creature of 
prodigious animal spirits, running over with fun and queer simili- 
tudes. He makes not the slightest attempt at arranging a joke, 
but utters what comes uppermost with irrepressible volubility. He 
is an untutored wit, and, we have no doubt, gave his tongue as 
active exercise by hurried pronunciation and variable emphasis as 
could alone make his long descriptions endurable by his sensitive 
master. Look at the dialogue in the second scene of act ii., where 
Antipholus, after having repressed his jests, is drawn into a tilting- 
match of words with him, in which the merry slave has clearly the 
victory. Look, again, at his description of the ' kitchen-wench ' — 
coarse, indeed, in parts, but altogether irresistibly droll. The twin- 
brother was quite incapable of such a flood of fun. Again, what a 
prodigality of wit is displayed in his description of the bailiff ! His 
epithets are inexhaustible. Each of the Dromios is admirable in 
his way ; but we think that he of Syracuse is as superior to the 



Appendix 195 

twin-slave of Ephesus as our old friend Launce is to Speed, in 
the Two Gentlemen of Verona. These distinctions between the 
Antipholuses and Dromios have not, as far as we know, been before 
pointed out ; but they certainly do exist, and appear to us to be 
defined by the great master of character with singular force as well 
as delicacy. Of course the characters of the twins could not be 
violently contrasted, for that would have destroyed the illusion. 
They must still * Go hand in hand, not one before another.' " 



The Duration of the Action 

The action of the drama is all included in a single day, beginning 
with the " morning story " of ^geon and ending in the afternoon 
soon after "the dial points at five" (v. i. ii8). Its progress is 
marked by many little references to the time of day which it is 
unnecessary to point out here. This play and The Tempest are the 
only plays of Shakespeare in which the " unities " of time and place 
are observed. 

List of Characters in the Play 

The numbers in parentheses indicate the lines the characters 
have in each scene. 

Duke : i. 1(48) ; v. 1(43). Whole no. 91. 

^geon : i. 1(1 10); v. 1(33). Whole no. 143. 

Antipholus of Ephesus : m. 1(47); iv. 1(48), 4 (44); v. 1(73). 
Whole no. 212. 

Antipholus of Syracuse : i. 2(55); ii. 2(84); iii. 2(86); iv. 3 
(27), 4(5); V. 1(22). Whole no. 279. 

Dromio of Ephesus : i. 2(33); ii. 1(32); iii. 1(30); iv. i(i), 
4(44); V. 1(21). Whole no. 161. 

Dromio of Syracuse : i. 2(2); ii. 2(67); iii. 1(14), 2(62); iv. 
i(i6), 2(25), 3(44), 4(7); V. i(ii). Whole no. 248. 



196 Appendix 

Balthazar : iii. 1(26). Whole no. 26. 

Angela : iii. 1(2), 2(10); iv. 1(34); v. 1(31). Whole no. 77, 

1st Merchant : i. 2(15). Whole no. 15. 

2d Merchant : iv. i(ii); v. 1(23). Whole no. 34. 

Officer : iv. I (3), 4(10). Whole no. 13. 

Gaoler : i. i(i). Whole no. i. 

Servant: v. 1(15). Whole no. 15. 

Pinch: iv. 4(12). Whole no. 12. 

Emilia: iv. 1(73). Whole no. 73. 

Adriana: ii. 1(55), 2(63); iii. 1(2); iv. 2(34), 4(31); v. 1(75). 
Whole no. 260. 

Luciana : ii. 1(30), 2(8); iii. 2(36); iv. 2(10), 4(5); v. 1(7). 
Whole no. 96. 

Luce : iii. 1(8). Whole no. 8. 

Courtesan: iv. 3(26), 4(6) ; v. 1(3). Whole no. 35. 

In the above enumeration parts of lines are counted as whole 
lines, making the total in the play greater than it is. The actual 
number of lines in each scene (Globe edition numbering) is as fol- 
lows: i. 1(159), 2(105); ii. 1(116), 2(221); iii. 1(123), 2(190); 
iv. 1(113), 2(66), 3(97), 4(162); V. 1(426). Whole no. in the 
play, 1778. 

The play is the shortest of Shakespeare's dramas, being less 
than half the length of Hamlet (the longest), which has 3930 
lines. The next shortest is The Tetttpest (^2065 lines), and the 
next Macbeth (2109). 



INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES 
EXPLAINED 



absence six months old, 

122 

abused (= deceived), 173 
ache (spelling), 143 
advised, I am, 174 
aim (transitive), 149 
albeit, 174 
almanac of my true date, 

126 
alone, alone, 132 
amain, 123 
America, 150 
anatomy, 174 
angel (coin), 163 
Antipholus, 177, 188 
apparently, 155 
armadoes, 151 
a-row, 173 
as (=that), 122 
aspect (accent), 134 
assured (= affianced), 151 
at board, 147 
at random, 121 
attach (= arrest), 153, 155, 

165 
attaint, 146 
attorney, 171 
avoid ! 162 
ay me ! 168 

back-friend, 159 

bait (= entice), 131 

ballast, 151 

balsamum, 156 

band (=bond), 161 

bastard fame, 146 

bear (= win) , 169 

become disloyalty, 146 

befallen of, 123 

before judgment, 160 

Belgia, 151 

belike, 154, 164 

beshrew, 130 

besides (preposition), 149 

bespeak a long spoon, 164 



bestow (= employ), 153 
bestowed, 127 
bestrid, 173 
bloods, 118 
bob (= rap), 162 
bond (play upon), 168 
both one and other, 164 
bought and sold, 144 
bound (play upon), 176 
broke (= broken) , 126 
buff, 159 

building (figurative), 146 
buy sport dear, 155 

calendars (figurative), 178 

capon, 143 

caracks, 151 

carat, 154 

carcanet, 142 

careful (= anxious), 176 

carve to, 137 

cates, 142 

certes, 167 

chalky cliffs, 150 

changeful, 154 

charged him with, 142 

choleric (from burnt 

meat), 134 
Circe's cup, 175 
circumstance, 169 
clean (= quite), 124 
clock (figurative), 127 
coil (= ado) , 143 
coldly (= calmly), 175 
common (noun), 134 
compact (accent), 139 
compact of credit, 146 
companion, 167 
compass of suspect, 144 
conceit (= conception), 

146, 161 
conference, 170 
confiscate, 121 
confounds himself, 126 
confusion (=ruin), 140 

197 



conjure (accent), 164 
consecrate, 137 
consort (= keep com- 
pany), 126 
copy (= theme), 170 
counter (play upon), 160 
countermands, 160 
curtal, 152 
customers, 167 

dankish, 175 
dark-working, 128 
deadly (= deathly), 168 
death, the, 124 
debted, 154 
deciphers, 176 
decline (= incline), 140 
deep-divorcing, 138 
deer (play upon), 131 
defeatures, 131, 176 
deformed (= deforming) , 

176 
demean, 164 
denied (with negative), 

despite of mirth, 145 
devil's dam, the, 163 
different (metre), 170 
digestions (metre), 170 
dilate (= relate), 123 
disannul, 124 
discharge (— pay) , 168 
discharged (= paid) , 154 
discover (= disclose), 173 
dispense with, 132 
dispose (noun), 121 
disposed (= disposed oO» 

127 
distain, 138 
distemperatures, 171 
distract (= distracted), 

divmer, 151 

do displeasure, i68, 172 

doom, 118 



198 



Index of Words and Phrases 



doubtfully (play upon ?) , 

130 
Dowsabel, 157 
draw cuts, 179 
draws dry-foot, 160 
dry basting, 135 
durance, 162 

earnest (play upon), 134 
ecstasy (= madness), 167 
elm (figurative), 139 
embracements, 122 
Epidamnum, 121 
Epidaurus, 123 
everlasting garment, 159 
excrement, 135 
exempt (= separated), 139 

fair (= fairness), 131 
fairly I bespoke, 174 
fairy (malignant), 159 
faith, 151 

fall (transitive), 137 
falsing, 136 

far from her nest the lap- 
wing cries, 158 
fast (play upon), 128 
feeble key of untuned 

cares, 176 
fine and recovery, 135 
fly pride, says the pea- 
cock, 164 
folded (= concealed), 147 
fond (= doting), 133 
fondly (= foolishly), 133, 

161 
fool-begged, 130 
for (= because), 122 
for why, 149 

forbid (= forbidden) , 128 
formal (= ordinary), 171 
forswore to have, 169 
forth (=away from home) , 

141 
forth (=out), 126, 168 
fraughtage, 155 

genius, 176 

get within him, 169 

Gillian, 142 

Ginn, 142 

glanced it, 170 

glass (metaphor), 179 

God, for thy mercy ! 168 

God he knows, 174 

good now, 165 



gossip (=make merry), 178 
gossips' feast, 178 
grained, 176 
growing (=accruing),i53, 

168 
guilders, 119, 153 
guilty to, 152 

hairs, 147 

harlots (masculine), 173 

hatch (noun), 143 

healthful, 123 

hear (dissyllable), 169 

heart's meteors, 157 

heir (play upon), 150 

hell (play upon), 160 

help (repeated), 124 

helpless, 129 

hire (dissyllable), 156 

his (= its), 129, 132, 158 

hit of, 146 

holp, 154 

horn-mad, 130 

host (verb), 125 

hot in her breath, 150 

hour (dissyllable), 145 

how chance, 126 

hoy, 163 

I buy a thousand pound a 

year ! 153 
I think it be, 177 
idle (= barren), 140 
illusions (metre), 163 
impeach (noun), 175 
important (= importu- 
nate), 172 
importune (accent), 123, 

153, 154 
in (=into), 161, 171, 172 
in post, 126 
in sunder, 175 
in trim, 156 
incorporate, 137 
inspiration (metre), 139 
instance (=sign), 122 
intestine, 119 
is wandered, 13: 
it shall not nee 



d, 177 



jest upon, 134 
jewel, 132, 172 
jollity, 136 

kinsman (= akin), 170 
kitchened me, 179 



kitchen-vestal, 167 
know my aspect, 134 

Lapland sorcerers, 161 

lashed, 128 

latter-born, 122 

lay at host in, 179 

lets (= hinders), 132 

levied (trisyllable), 121 

liberties of sin, 128 

licentious (metre), 137 

lifeless end, 125 

light (= wanton), 148, 163 

light (play upon ?), 148 

Limbo, 159 

list me, 156 

liveless, 125 

lives upon succession, 145 

living dead man, 174 

lock me forth, 168 

long (with subordinate 

clause), 168 
long spoon, bespeak a, 

164 
Love (= Venus) , 148 
love-springs, 145 
Low Countries (play 

upon), 151 
Luce (play upon), 143 

mace, 162 
mad (verb), 171 
make the doors, to, 144 
malt-horse, 143 
marks (play upon), 127 
mated (= mad), 175 
mated (play upon) , 148 
mean (= means), 125 
merchant (metre), 124 
mermaid (= siren), 147, 

152 
mickle, 143 
minions (= favourites), 

131 
mome, 142 
mood (= anger), 139 
more hair than wit, 135 
morris-pike, 162 
mortal (= deadly), 119 
motions (= proposals), 

122 
moves (= appeals to), 140 

nativity, 178 

nature (= natural feel- 
ing), 121 



Index of Words and Phrases 



99 



need (impersonal), 177 
neither, 171, 176 
new-apparelled, 162 
nicks him like a fool, 

173 
no lace, 175 
no (=not), 125, 172 
nor , . . no, 147 
nor . . . not, 158 

o'er-raught, 128 
of (omitted), 123 
of (=out of), 124 
on night, 174 
on the case, 161 
once this, 144 
other where, 129, 132 
our (dissyllable ?), 121 
owe (= own) , 143 
owls, 140 

packed, 174 

parcel (= part), 171 

parrot, like the, 166 

part (= depart) , 144 

partial to infringe, etc., 
119 

passage, 144 

patch (=fool), 143 

patience (metre), 144 

pause (= rest), 129 

peasant, 174 

peevish (= silly) , 156, 168 

penitent (= doing pen- 
ance), 126 

perceive austerely, 157 

perdy, 167 

perforce (= by force) , 164, 
171 

persever, 141 

peruse the traders, 125 

Phoenix, the, 127 

picture of old Adam, 162 

Pinch, 166 

plainings, 122 

please (= give a gratuity) , 
167 

pleaseth you, 153 

pluck a crow together, 
144 

porpentine, 145 

possess from, 140 

possession (metre), 145 

post (play upon), 127 

pound (plural), 154 

presently, 152^ 169 



procrastmate, 125 

put finger in the eye, 141 

quit (= remit), 121 

raising of, 172 
reave, 123 
respice finem, 166 
reverend, 172 
reverted, 150 
rhyme nor reason, 134 
road (= haven), 152 
round (play upon), 130 
run humour out of breath, 

155 
runs counter, 160 

sans, 167 

satisfaction (metre), 153, 

175, 177 
sconce, 127, 134 
scorch, 173 
season (= opportunity;, 

161 
seditious, 119 
self (adjective), 169 
semblance (trisyllable), 

177 
send me by some token, 

154 
sensible (play upon), 165 
sere, 158 

sets up his rest, 162 
shamest (intransitive), 

176 
shapeless (= misshapen) , 

158 
sheep (play upon) , 15 
ship (play upon), 156 
shrive you, 141 
sinking-ripe, 122 
sir knave, 127 
sir-reverence, 149 
situate, 129 
sleeps (noun), 170 
so (omitted), 151, 172 
so fair an offered chain, 

153 
Solinus (spelling), 118 
some other, 161 
soon at five o'clock, 126 
soothe (= humour), 167 
sorry, 171 
sot (= dolt), 141 
sour (dissyllable), 170 
speak hitn fair^ 157, 168 



spite (= vexation), 157 
splitted, 123, 176 
spurn at, 137 
stale (play upon), 131 
stands upon, 155 
starve (for a look), 131 
stay for, 154 
stigmatical in making, 

158 
stomach (= appetite), 126 
strayed (transitive), 170 
strong escape, 172 
strucken, 126 
strumpeted, 138 
stuff (= luggage), 168 
succession (metre), 145 
suits of durance, 162 
supposed, 145 
sure uncertainty, 140 
suspect (noun), 144 
swart, 149 
sweet-faced, 179 
sweet now, 159 
sympathized, 177 
synod, 119 
Syracusians, 121 

take a house, 169 

take order, 172 

Tartar (= Tartarus), 159 

that (affix), 125, 133, 134 

thirty-three years, 177 

this (= this is), 121 

timely (= early), 124 

to (infinitive), 129, 169 

took (= taken), 131 

took on him as a conjurer, 

174 
touching (— testmg), 133 
towards (accent), 123 
train (= entice), 147 
tremble in his ecstasy, 

167 
turn i' the wheel, 152 
two hours old, 139 

unbound (play upon), 176 
understand (play upon), 

130 
undisposed, 127 
ungalled, 145 
unhappy, 168 

vain (= foolish) , 153 
vain (= light of tongue) , 
146 



200 Index of Words and Phrases 



venom (adjective), 170 
villain (= vassal), 125 
vulgar, 145 

waftage, 157 
wafts (= beckons), 136 
weary (sun), 125 
week (play upon?), 149 
well-advised, 141 



what (= why) , 146 
what please, 153 
whenas, 168 
when ? can you tell ? 

143 
whether (monosyllable) , 

1.55 
which (=who), 177 
who (= whom), 172 



will (= shall), 154 
will (= would), 128 
wink (= shut the eyes) , 

148 
won (= dwell) , 165 
wont (= is wont) , 165 
wot, 172 
wrack, 170 
wrong not that wrong, 139 



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